We immersed ourselves in a bit of the wild west today with a visit to Tombstone. We soon found out there is a lot more to its history than the shootout at the OK Corral. Tombstone is not a fake western town or movie set with fake store fronts. Most of the buildings go back to the 1880’s. The Historama, right out of the 60’s, was our first stop to get up to speed on the history. The displays and film narrated by Vincent Price were down right hokey but fun and interesting. Before Ed Schieffelin went prospecting for silver in 1878, he was warned that by going out into the Apache land all he would find was his tombstone. Instead he ended up with more than one silver mine and taking out millions of dollars over the next few years. Tombstone stuck as the name. He built the largest adobe to be built in the US. The town filled with miners, businessmen, ladies of night, Chinese workers, and cowboys from the surrounding ranches. Soon there were 85,000 people making it the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco. It was an unruly dangerous place to be when the former sheriff asked Wyatt Earp and his brothers to come to town and bring in a level of control. They were successful for a time until the cowboys, the Claytons and McClaury brothers, brought their discontent into town. They had been free to rob fellow cattle ranches as well as stage coaches and Ike Clayton had a bone to pick with Wyatt Earp. The inevitable show down climaxed months of threats, romantic rivalries, stage robberies, pistol whippings and arrests. The shootout at the OK Corral was the end result. The two Earp brothers were wounded along with Doc Holliday. Three of the McClaury and Claytons were killed. Only Wyatt went away unscathed. He soon left town and after living all over the west, he spent the rest of his life living in the Los Angeles area dying in his 80’s. Another interesting tidbit was learning about C.S. Fry. He and his wife had a photography studio in town and many of his photographs are on display. He has some very famous shots of Geranimo and his surrender. The descriptions given of the lives of ladies of the night or “soiled doves” had an impact on us. How they dealt with the daily trails was more than I liked to think about. Life in this town was rowdy to say the least. Today you can take a stage coach ride, visit saloons, and shops as you make your way around town. We took the trolley tour and heard a lot of the history. Our trolley driver was a part time driver and part time stunt man for western movies when Hollywood comes to town. They are starting to film a new movie in the next month. Tourism does a lot for saving our history. This town is a good example of that.
 |
| Gunfight at the OK Corral |
 |
| Downtown Tombstone |
We headed out for two places that we heard about recently, Fort Bowie and Chiricahua National Monument. Both areas were in the Chiricahua Apache country where Cochise and Geronimo roamed the hills. A group of retired park rangers voted on their top “little known” parks in Arizona and Fort Bowie was at the top of the list. As we hiked to the fort we discovered the importance of Apache Pass with the help of informational signs to explain what had happened in the area after 1858. The Apache’s lived with the Butterfield Overland stage passing through for three years before they stopped the run on the eve of the Civil War. The wheel ruts are still visible along with the ruins of the stage house. Apache Spring was key to the area as it was the only water in the area. The Chiricahauns shared the water peacefully with the stage, emigrants, prospectors and soldiers as they passed through their homeland. It wasn’t until 1861, that a band of Apaches raided John Ward’s ranch and stole some live stock along with an adopted son of John Ward. Ward falsely blamed Cochise and the Chiricahuans which led the bloodied battles for the next 10 years. Fort Bowie was built in 1862, and between 1862 and 1866, the fort was the nerve center for the military campaigns against the Chiricahuan Apaches led by Chochise and Geronimo. We walked the ruins, passed by Apache Spring and the Butterfield stage house thinking how history played out and how a different course might have led to a more amicable end. Looking out across the hills, it was easy to picture Cochise and Geronimo riding their horses with their braves thinking that life would continue as it had for hundreds of years. With their homeland stripped from them, they ended up in Florida and Oklahoma. The bitter struggle ended in 1886 with the surrender of Geronimo. The fort was abandoned in 1894. We loved the hike with all the history!
 |
| Fort Bowie |
No comments:
Post a Comment