MOJAVE MULESKINNERS

 

 

Tombstone, Arizona

 

"The Town Too Tough To Die"

 

 

 

In 1877, a man named Ed Schieffelin set out to make his fortune in Apache country, east of Fort Huachuca. When his friends at the Fort heard about his plans, they laughed and said that all he'd find was his tombstone. Schieffelin's reply was the discovery of one of the richest veins of silver and gold in the Arizona Territory. He named this first claim "The Tombstone" and died a rich man in Oregon 20 years later.

 

The town that grew up around the silver mines has become famous for its early freewheeling, frontier days. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and their gunfight with the Clantons at the OK Corral epitomizes the wild West. Apache battles, border outlaws, two huge fires and finally underground flooding that closed the silver mines raged through the town. But Tombstone doggedly persisted, earning it the slogan "The Town Too Tough to Die."