[Texas Fossil]

I traveled Arizona for many years. Went to Tombstone often. There are a lot of legends about it, many of those legends are embellished upon.

Tom tries hard to see past that.

I like his work.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

In the little cemetery in my hometown a grave stone reads:

“Been here and gone.
Had a good time.”

[\/\/ayne]

26 Men was a TV Series in the 50's about the Arizona Rangers based on historical fact. I don't remember which episode but at the end of one of them a real Arizona Ranger comes on to say the events just seen really happened that way and he knows because he was there.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Here lies red-head Fred,
not so much for how he lived,
but very much for what he said,
is the reason this man is dead.

[Bob]

...and Hank Dunstan lay mortally wounded. All in all both men ended up dead.

Gee, mortally wounded and he ended up dead... Who would have expected that?

[Fiddlstix]

Bookmark

[NTHockey]

In doing a genealogical study of my family, I found the US census from 1900-1930 absolutely unreliable. The 1900 census had misspellings, wrong names and even different names (both wrong) on subsequent pages. The 1930 census even had a question mark in the middle of my families name!

[rdl6989]

My family was there back in the 90’s. Many of those tombstones are “poetic”.

Here lies George Johnson, Hanged by mistake, 1882.
He was right, we was wrong, but we strung him up and now he’s gone.”

http://www.boothillgraves.com

[granite]

[Tammy8]

In the 30s and 40s Tombstone was a falling down old mining town that few cared about. History buffs would go there and people writing for the magazines that played history as drama to sell stories. Few others ever went to Tombstone, there were some small businesses there so locals would go there to shop; basically it was a little rural community.

When western movies began to get popular and from the publicity of the western magazines the people in Tombstone began to get a few more people stopping by on their vacation and decided to target tourism. An earlier group had cleaned up and fixed up Boot Hill, that group did their best to locate the actual graves and replace markers- in their mind they were fixing up the town cemetery. As time went on and more of Tombstone was cleaned up and fixed up for tourists from time to time additions were made to Boot Hill that were not accurate, added for the tourists.

I knew the people that owned the ranch where Johnny Ringo is buried, it is as the crow flies around 50 miles from Tombstone. When Tombstone was getting prettied up for tourists they added Johnny Ringo to Boot Heel. People objected to that so much they removed him pretty quick, otherwise he would still “be” there.

There are many things in Tombstone that are historically accurate as can be; but over the years some have not cared about that and have included things that are not true just for tourism.

I love Tombstone, have been there many times over the years. Lived close to there on a ranch for a while and went there to shop. Later as a college student would go there on weekends to dance because the bars had live music. Now I take my grand kids and just go as a tourist. I hate to see all the commercialism now but if not for the tourists it would likely be another ghost town so can’t have it both ways.

[airdalechief]

Bookmarked that site. Thanks!

Been to Tombstone many times. Watched the ‘shoot-out’ many times. Drank a beer there many times.

Tombstone has an aura about it. Especially if you like non-fiction western history.

[Old Grumpy]

Fascinating reading!

[PJ-Comix]

Those buried there includes Marshal Fred White who was 31 years old when he was accidentally shot and killed by Curly Bill Brocius on October 30th, 1880.

A lot younger than the Harry Carey, Jr. version.

[Know et al]

Here lies dentist Jones
We'll feel his loss with much gravity

We also realize that he had to go
And fill this one last cavity.