by A year ago I took a trip up high in the mountains of southern Arizona to visit the legendary town of Tombstone. Here is what I observed in 2019:
Back in the 1950s the American cultural heros were cowboys of the Old West and World War II G.I.s. That all ended when George Lucas produced the first Star Wars movie and an entirely new universe of heros and villains eclipsed the past. Stormtroopers have replaced cowboys as Halloween favorites.
But as a child of the ’50s I decided to take a trip to this legendary town high up in the mountains of Southern Arizona. The famous gun fight at the OK Corral took place here. Wyatt Earp and his brothers walked these streets, as did the notorious Clanton clan.
Seven years after silver was discovered at the Good Enough mine, the population soared to over 14,000. Today there are about 1400 people living there and the primary source of income is tourism. Except along the two main streets there are For Sale signs all around the town. You could even buy the old high school if you were so inclined. If real estate is not for you, you can take a tour of the old Good Enough mine.
So here is what I saw as I wandered around…
A sign on the front of the Longhorn hotel reveals that it is a reconstruction. The original burned down in the early 20th Century and was rebuilt in the 1950s. In its first incarnation it housed a clothing company, then became a bar called Buckets of Blood. Virgil Earp’s assassin hid upstairs and shot Earp on the street below which may explain the Buckets of Blood name.
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