Downtown Tombstone

Southeast Arizona

Ft. Huachuca
In February '06 we drove over to Ft. Huachuca to rendezvous with our friends Paul & Sue who flew out from the east coast. Paul is an Old West buff and was eager to explore the southeastern part of Arizona. We were eager to join them, not only to visit with them, but to also explore Ft. Huachuca. Dru's Uncle Arch and Uncle Ed were born there. We had excellent accommodations. Paul was able to get us two suites in the VIP guest quarters. The building was built in 1880 and stands adjacent to the original parade grounds along with senior officer housing. In addition to the spacious suites, we had full use of a very large living room, dining room and kitchen.

Above left you see Paul and Dave slaving away in the kitchen while Sue & Dru relax and visit in the living room. Below left is a view of the old parade field. The officer's quarters are to the left (we were at the far end behind the tree) and the original barracks are on the right. Below right shows the well-appointed furnishings in but a mere corner of the spacious living room. As you might imagine from the below left photo, the fort really is "way out in the middle of nowhere." Deer strolled through the area each evening. One night as Dave was going to bed he looked out the window and saw animals trotting by. There were eight wild boar (or razorbacks)!
There is an excellent museum on the base. Unfortunately, it had practically no information on the late 1890s, the timeframe Dru's grandfather would have been stationed there. Perhaps there was a research library, but we did not locate it. (We were there on a three-day weekend.)

Tombstone
On Saturday we headed up to Tombstone, billed as the "town too tough to die." There were two major fires in the town's early years, each destroying significant portions of the business area. Each time the town rebuilt. The buildings have been preserved/restored and form the center of the town's tourism industry. Below left, one of the stage coaches is seen rumbling through town. Below right, Dave poses with the Black Mariah, an elegant hearse allegedly valued at close to a million dollars today. It is one of the few (if not the only) surviving hearse from that era with a curved glass window in the front.)

Next came the reenactment of the shootout at the OK Corral. Wyatt Earp is seen firing his gun in the lower left photo. On the right, Dave smoozes with Virgil and Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday after they survived the fight. Notice how interested they are in his presence!

There is some controversy surrounding the fight, and there is an obvious move afoot to re-write its history. There are claims that Billy Clanton and one of the McLaury's were unarmed. With the tendency to write history these days as it should have happened rather than as it was, who knows for sure? Still, the injection of the controversy clouds the performance.
An unexpected treat was a visit to the Episcopal Church, built in 1882. As you might imagine, it has quite a history located in such a lawless town. The funds for the church building were raised by a seminarian, Endicott Peabody, who served as its second vicar. In a mere six months he raised over $4,000.00! After the church was built, one day a member of the altar guild came home to discover a card game in progress in her house. Upset about it, she regained her composure sufficiently to "suggest" that she could overlook this transgression if the pot on the table were donated to the church. Thus the church gained its altar rail, which is still there. Incidentally, Endicott Peabody returned to Massachusetts and organized and was appointed headmaster of a church-affiliated boys' boarding school at Groton.

In the photo below left, Dru is seen standing in front of the original building. Fortunately, it survived the two fires. While there, we were greeted by a delightful lady who lived next door in the rectory. She quite eagerly gave us a personal tour and even played two hymns on the organ for us. She is pictured at the keyboard in the lower right photo.

From there is was out to boot hill, the cemetery. Some say this was the first boot hill, but there are several throughout the west. Boot hill was a bit of a disappointment. When we asked for directions, one of the docents on the streets of Tombstone asked, "Which one, the original or the one today?" He went on to explain that the original was moved to make room for the Circle K gas station. We went to the present site and did not get the impression that it was a re-creation of the original. There were several rows of stone mounds marked by modern signs as to its "occupant." One wonders how many, if any, remains are actually interred there.

Our adventurous foursome is seen in the cemetery in the lower left photo. On the lower right is a composite photo of several interesting grave markers in the cemetery. Note the one on the left marking the graves of the victims of the OK Corral shoot out, declaring that they were "murdered!" Thus goes the re-writing of history.

From Tombstone it was on to Bisbee and Chiricahua National Monument. You'll find those on page 2 of our adventure.

Go to Page Two to see our adventures in Bisbee and Chiricahua National Monument

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