Corbis Sygma
Posted on 08/08/2005 3:21:26 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Corbis Sygma
Few buildings in this 1881 photograph of Tombstone are still standing.
TOMBSTONE, Ariz., Aug. 3 - George Spangenberg sold weapons to both Wyatt Earp and the gang he faced at the O.K. Corral. Today visitors can see the G. F. Spangenberg gun shop - "Est. 1880," according to its sign - standing on Fourth Street.
Well, actually, the shop was established only 16 years ago to cater to tourists and has no connection to the gunsmith whose name it borrowed.
"We don't say it's the same shop," said Jim Newbauer, a manager of the store, which is across the street from where the original stood. Nor does the shop go out of its way to say it isn't.
Just how true to history this famous Old West town should remain is the subject of a modern-day shootout. "The town too tough to die," as Tombstone bills itself, is at risk of losing its designation as a national historic landmark because some say it has been a little too kitschy in embellishing its heritage.
"It's becoming like a Hollywood set instead of an authentic historic Western town," said Sally Alves, a bed-and-breakfast owner.
Dates from the 19th century are painted on buildings erected in the last few decades. Some stores have simulated brick or adobe facades. Some are painted in colors like purple or turquoise that probably were not used in 1880's frontier towns.
The National Park Service, which administers the landmark program, last year listed Tombstone's status as "threatened" because of building alterations "that didn't have any basis in history," said Greg Kendrick, regional manager of the program. Only about 90 of the nation's 2,400 historic landmarks are considered "threatened," mostly because of deterioration, not decoration. Since 1980, 25 have lost their designation.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ah, good old dodge city!
you'd love what they've done to the place...hehe
Boot Hill is still there, but it's something like 20 bucks just to enter it, it's incredibly cheesy and tourism has dropped considerably.
Meanwhile the downtown and front street area next to Boot Hill is now a latino market. The Guatemalans and Ecuadorans have shops and tiendas but they fight with the Mexicans and the Hondurans over the retail space...
East side is run by a combination of 3 latino gangs, while the south side is controlled by the Redneck meth dealers. normal folks are increasingly confined in their middle class ghettoes. A late night run to the Super Duper Mega-Lo Wal Mart on 14th is a risky proposition....
Infrastructure is in complete disrepair, and when I was there last Christmas, it looked like a cross between Baghdad and Mexico City.
Most of the small manufacturing has long since shut down or left for mexico, and industry has been replaced by not 1, not 2, but 3 meat packing plants. Half the town works in the plants, and consequently half the town is spanish only and new immigrants.
It's kinda interesting, I still have relatives there and my little niece in 4th grade is fluent in english and spanish, but she can only read in spanish....as that is what most of the elementary schools focus on, with about 80% of the kids from spanish only households. On the other hand, you've never had better Mexican food. The Honduran and Guatemalan restaurants aren't bad either. Also, The Teinda's and mercados that have sprung up are good places to shop, you'll always find something interesting.Freshly cut goat meat anyone?
On the down side, Dodge City has the name recognition that they could easily capitalize on but they don't. Instead they focus on bringing more low wage meat factories.
How about Garden City and Liberal? Are they going down the same road?
Alco's, Gibson's, all the downtown shops, etc. are gone....
They are vacant lots with weeds and bushes growing in the parking lot.
Gang kids spray paint the buildings, and the old Alcos on the north side is only used by the occasional skaterboarders and meth dealers now.
The downtown is half empty, with the remaining stores being hispanic shops that sell cassette tapes and tacos from the same stall.
And no, I'm really not kidding, sad as it sounds...
So if you want something in Dodge, anything, it's the Mega-Walmart, (bigger than the old Village Square shopping mall, which is now basically empty except for the Army recruiter, a movie place, and a jewlery shop) or the hundreds of Family Dollar, Dollar General, Supa Saver, Dollartime stores.
Even groceries, as most of the locals couldn't compete, and the remaining Dillon's food store is desperately trying to stay in business. When it goes, Wal Mart and convience stores will be the only food suppliers in town too...hehe.
SpedKing, Crust Buster, all the blue collar jobs are basically gone. Why pay an American to weld farm implements?
Ship those jobs out!
So It's Walmart, fast food, or the meat plants for middle class folks.
Garden is doing slightly better, but they are still enforcing laws and zoning regs, whereas Dodge City just gave up around the mid-90's. Today in Dodge you can move a trailer in your back yard, rent it out to illegals, and no one seems to care anymore.
Liberal is more like Dodge circa the mid-80's. They have a meat plant, and a new pork plant, but they still have some other industry.
That is a depressing scene. Sounds like if they round up the illegals there will be only a few people left in Dodge.
I find it interesting the biggest threat to Tombstone is the actual deterioration of the buildings, rather than tourist attractions making it Disneyesque..
Tombstone has been kitschy for quite a while, though.
Isn't "Johnny Ringo" fictitious?
The Caverns are another good place to visit. I'm like my relatives in New York City who've never gone to see the Statue of Liberty. We haven't been to the Caverns, yet...but will one of these days!
I kinda fount Yuma AZ a pretty cool place with the old prison and real graveyard just outside.
I remember going to Boot Hill in Dodge City in 1959, 1972, and 1979, and I think it was free back then. I remember a museum that may a charged a small fee. I remember the old hanging tree, which may have been artificial. I also remember some kind of schoolhouse exhibit in the 1979 trip. Sadly, I may never pass that way again.
Why is Liberal, KS, called "Liberal"?
Tombstone has a lot of potential. The problem is that historic Allen Street has been taken over by a bunch of cheap souvenir shops. If the merchants worked together they might be able to restore Allen Street to what it was in the 1880's. But nobody wants to cooperate with anybody else.
I don't believe that the merchants of Allen Street will bat an eye when Tombstone loses its status as a historic site. It's all about profits to them.
It has nothing to do with politics. When the town was first established or the first settlers moved in, they gave water away for free which was apparently uncommon at the time.
In other words they were "Liberal" with their water.
That is the story on one of their brochures many years ago.
I had no idea that Dodge City had so deteriorated. Tell us more.
I recall driving through Grand Junction, CO, in August 1992 on a Saturday night, and a bullet whizzed across the top of the car. I think that town was already losing what law and order it may have once had. Anyone know the latest on Grand Junction, home of a national monument?
I saw the Yuma prison in August 1976. I think I drank two cokes after leaving the heat. At the time I did not know that cokes cannot really quench thirst. They were the best cokes that I probably ever drank.
Here lies Sam Pott,
Reckless stranger
Took a shot
At a Texas Ranger.
That's if you're alive. If you're dead, it even more.
Cochise's Stronghold is a must see also.
No, there was a Johnny Ringo, it seems:
Johnny Ringo (1850-1882)
The Story of the "King of the Cowboys."
John Peters Ringo achieved a reputation as a notorious and dangerous man in Texas based on his participation in the Hoodoo War, also known as the Mason County War, which peaked in violence during 1875. Around 1879, Johnny Ringo drifted West to the territory of Arizona, where the notorious cowboy became the chief antagonist of Wyatt Earp, and received more notoriety before his death in July 1882. For more than a century, mystery and controversy have circulated about the details of Ringo's demise, making his death one of the most hotly debated deaths in Old West history.
Johnny Ringo's passing did more than signal the consumation of the life of a notorious and dangerous man that had attained infamy throughout parts of the Southwest. It strangely began the cowboy's after-death journey into becoming a legendary cowboy whom writers romanticized to the point that he was considered one of the deadliest gunfighters of the Old West. By the 1960s, cinema and television had made Johnny Ringo a popular Western character known throughout the United States and in parts of Europe. As a result, the public's perception of John Ringo has been based largely on the legendary Johnny Ringo - deadly gunfighter, gentleman outlaw - "the fastest gun in all the West, the quickest ever known."
Just what is Cochise's Stronghold, and where is it?
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