2012/06 Western USA trip - Tombstone |
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The temperature held as we drove along the freeway and dropped a degree or two as we climbed from Benson towards Tombstone. Sandie was hoping for a free campsite but the likely spots were only available for backcountry hikers. Even if we’d had a tent, hiking and 
camping just 25 miles from the Mexican border would be a bit risky. We ended up camping in town at the Wells Fargo, just off Tombstone’s historic area. It turned out to be a good campground; everything worked. The owner had a Willys Jeep, an original, about as old as my Vincent.
Tombstone on a hot Sunday night turned out to be very quiet, with no shootouts or hangings that we noticed. It had been a bit livelier when we’d been there in the winter, but it was a good opportunity to wander round and do some window-shopping.
Monday June 18th 
The town wasn’t much livelier on a hot Monday morning but we did a little shopping, booked up for the trolley trip and had an early lunch. The trolley trip took us around town, much of which is original. The driver told us lots of stories, some of them true. The miner who founded the town was told that prospecting in Apache territory, the only thing he was likely to find was his tombstone. So that’s what he named the town when he found silver.
We heard all about the gunfight at the OK Corral, the Earps (Wyatt, 
Virgil, and Morgan) , Doc Holliday, the Clantons and the McLaurys, Big Nose Kate, and Bat Masterson. Some of those characters he described seem larger than life. Masterson was a buffalo hunter, army scout, gunfighter, sheriff, gambler, saloon owner, and in later life he worked for Teddy Roosevelt. Finally, he was a newspaper columnist, dying at his typewriter, from a heart attack.
Our last stop in Tombstone was at Wyatt Earp’s statue in front of his house,