The Un-reel Tombstone

TEXT AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY BOB BOZE BELL TOMBSTONE THE LEGEND TOO TOUGH TO DIE

WYATT EARP STEPS INTO THE WIDE DUSTY STREET TO FACE THE WORST BAND OF TRIGGER-HAPPY GUNMEN ARIZONA TERRITORY HAD EVER KNOWN. TWO DOZEN DUST-CAKED CORNERED OUTLAWS SHUDDER AS THEY FACE THE COLD CHILL OF THE LAWMAN'S ICY-BLUE EYES. THEY ALL KNOW THEY HAVE ONLY SECONDS TO LIVE. JUST THEN THE SWINGING DOORS OF THE GRAND HOTEL SALOON SPRING OPEN TO REVEAL A YOUNG BOY IN A BELLHOP'S UNIFORM, COMPLETE WITH RED CAP AND WHITE GLOVES. "TELEPHONE, MR. EARP. IT'S FOR YOU." "CUT!"Historical Fact: Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, and by 1881 there were a number of telephones in Tombstone connecting the mines and various businesses. Hollywood Fact: you have never seen Wyatt Earp on the silver screen using a telephone in Tombstone. Why?

To find out, let's go back to the beginning. They called it Goose Flats before prospector Ed Schieffelin stumbled onto it. Schieffelin was a scout by trade and a prospector on the side, who came into the territory by way of Hackberry and Fort Whipple, Arizona. He accompanied the troops who set out to establish Fort Huachuca in March, 1877. From the new camp, he looked out across the San Pedro Valley, deep in the southeastern corner of Arizona, and saw potential. As he set out alone one day to prospect this Apache-controlled domain, the soldiers laughingly told him the only thing he would find out there was his tombstone.But what he did find was silver, and plenty of it.

By April, 1878, the word was out, and miners and adventurers began to converge on Goose Flats, staking claims right and left. The fledgling town of tents and crude cabins needed a new name, and the town's first citizen, Ed Schieffelin, promptly complied: Tombstone. Yes, those soldiers were right; he had literally found it.Legend says that Schieffelin also named Tombstone's most famous newspaper. The story goes that he was riding into the district on a stage with John Clum, who, it is said, asked the passengers to suggest a name for the paper he was about to start."The Epitaph," said Schieffelin without even taking a breath. "That's the name for a paper that will celebrate in enduring print the deeds and fame of Tombstone."

Clum wasn't convinced. "But epitaphs are usually mere chiselled lies."

"Well," deadpanned Schieffelin, "they tell the truth about as often as newspapers."

By the spring of 1880, big money had arrived in town. Huge infusions of capital came from San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and even Europe as everyone tried to hit the jackpot by throwing mass quantities of green all over town.With the capital came the latest in technology and fashion. Tombstone had more than its share of geologists, engineers, and college professors. And the businesses that sprang up to meet their needs sported the latest in everything. Bartenders were as adept at mixing sophisticated drinks as they were at drawing beer. Cowboys stood at the bar and asked for gin fizzes, toddies, and champagne. A visitor in 1882 remarked,

TOMBSTONE

"The landlord of our hotel described [the cowboys] as 'perfect gentlemen,' some of them good at the bar for as high as $20 or $25 a day."

Kelly's Wine House, one of 66 saloons within the city limits, featured 25 different imported wines from around the world and had a billiards room, a bowling alley, and an indoor shooting range.

Oyster bars were all the go with the shipments packed in dry ice coming from San Francisco by rail to Benson and then hauled overland by freight wagons the remainder of the way.

Ice-cream parlors proliferated. As an old man Wyatt Earp recalled, "I liked to eat ice cream in Tombstone." His favorite place was on Fourth Street just around the corner from the O.K. Corral.

Clubs and organizations of every variety and taste were formed. Dance clubs, French clubs, German clubs, Mason, and fraternal organizations by the score, tennis clubs (there also were tennis courts in Tombstone), theater clubs, you name it.

George Parsons, a bank teller and mining man, kept a journal of his stay in Tombstone. Although the camp was very primitive when he first arrived, it had quickly changed. He describes a house-sitting experience in early 1882: "I am to sleep at Johnson's house during his absence, so this evening went up there and staid [sic] the night. Will have some fine old baths now as his bathroom is connected directly with the tanks supplying the city with water and that fluid is plentiful with no cost. The idea of a bathroom. Too much civilization."

Many outsiders agreed with Parsons that Tombstone was too modern. A travel guide in 1882 disdainfully described the burgeoning mining community as "that spasm of aggressive modernism." It went on to complain, "Nobody haggles. The most expensive of everything is what is most wanted."

TOMBSTONE'S most famous resident, Wyatt Earp, lived there for only 22 months. The brevity of his stay, however, was more than made up for in activity. In fact for the next 100 years (and counting), virtually the entire town's focus narrowed to that brief freakish shoot-out of Tombstone's long distant past.

While the events surrounding the infamous gunfight of October 26, 1881, were quite dramatic, they don't accurately reflect the tone and fiber of life in Tombstone, or as it compared to other communities around the country. In 1924 Wyatt Earp, who was then residing in Los Angeles, gave a deposition for an estate case. He was asked, under oath, if lawlessness and murder were a problem in Tombstone while he was

COMMON EXPRESSIONS OF THE DAY

HARD SLEDDING: pertained to snow sleds on difficult terrain. Its usage on the frontier referred to having a difficult time convincing someone, as in, "It was hard sledding for Bob Hatch when it came time for his nomination."

CROOKING THE ARM: getting thrown out of a saloon. Having an arm "crooked" behind one's back and then given the bum's rush, as in, "We were doing fine until they started crooking the arm."

BUCKING THE TIGER: playing against the faro bank, as in, "We tried to talk Phin into leaving, but he was bucking the tiger."

SWAG: plenty of greenbacks or collateral that allowed a gambler to swagger, as in, "The Oriental was full of gentlemen who flashed up considerable swag."

SHOWCASE GAME: a crooked gambling game. Comes from a confidence racket that consisted of setting up a showcase on the sidewalk to entice unsuspecting pedestrians to buy fake jewelry displayed under glass.

MONKEYING WITH THE DEADWOOD: messing with the discards in a card game.

PLAY POKER: a cautioning phrase used by a card player who suspects a fellow player of "monkeying with the deadwood."

There. The aging gunfighter replied that Tombstone was “not half as bad as L.A.” A writer passing through Tombstone in 1882 seemed to agree: “... [with] the constant drinking and gambling at the saloons, and the universal practice of carrying deadly weapons, there is but one source of astonishment, and that is that the cold-lead disease should claim so few victims. Casualties are, after all, infrequent, considering the amount of vaporish talk indulged in, and the imminent risks that are run. The small cemetery, over toward Contention Hill, so far from being glutted with slaughtered, is still comparatively virgin ground.” This description was written in 1882

AVERAGE WAGES OF THE DAY

A free-lance hard-rock miner made $9.50 per foot.

A miner who worked aboveground earned $3.50 a day.

A miner who worked below ground earned $4 a day.

A soldier's wages were $13 per month.

A carpenter made $6 a day.

A blacksmith made $6 a day.

A mason made $6 a day.

An engineer made $6 a day.

A laborer made $3 a day.

A cook earned $50 to $75 per month.

A faro dealer made $6 per four-hour shift.

A cowboy made $30 a month.

A “soiled dove” charged 25¢ to $1; she got half.

A shotgun messenger earned $125 a month.

After the shoot-out between the Earps and Clantons and all of the subsequent gunplay. So much for the myth of the deadly town with the “man for breakfast” reputation. Which brings us back to the telephone. Just after the turn of the century, the United States woke up to find a “cowboy” sitting in the White House. As president, Teddy Roosevelt helped spark an interest in the era that was just closing: the Wild West. Teddy himself wrote about his adventures in the cow business (illustrated by Frederic Remington), and other characters quickly followed suit.

One was Wyatt Earp, who in 1924, began writing his life story with the help of an engineer. Perhaps because engineers and gunfighters aren't usually known to make good writers, the manuscript was rejected by every publisher and motion-picture executive, as well. It did not become a book until after his death.

Surprisingly, the manuscript is quite humorous. Unfortunately, it was not intended to be. Because of this, it's hard to know what to take seriously, like the text referring to his telephone conversation in early 1881: "A few minutes before 11 P.M. the United States deputy marshal at Tombstone [Wyatt] was summoned from his seat in the Grand Hotel by the ringing of the telephone bell. "Hello! Hello! Hello!" came the sound of a voice as if it were some distance away. "Is that you, Wyatt?"

"Yes, hello, who is this? I can hardly hear you."

"This is Bob. Bob Paul; can you hear?" "Oh yes, all right now; where are you?" "Benson; I just got in."

Wyatt Earp, in his own words, tells the world that he used a telephone in Tombstone. But every writer since (including movie scriptwriters) ignores this. Why? Simple, because that's the way we want it to be. So therefore Tombstone the real town is supplanted by Tombstone the "reel" town. And Marshal Wyatt Earp speaking on a phone bursts the bubble, and the frag-ile frontier world we have created comes crashing down. (Recent research indicates Wyatt couldn't have received a long-distance call in March, 1881. There were telephones connecting the mines to some Tombstone businesses by the fall of '81, but long-distance service was years away. However, that Wyatt years later would remember using a phone in Tombstone jars our sense of time and place.) In 1993 the movie people came to town again. Thanks to the success of Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven, two separate film companies were rushing to come out first with a new and improved Wyatt Earp story.

The first project was called Tombstone and starred Kurt Russell as Wyatt and Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday.

Right off the bat, however, they were outgunned and outspent by the Kevin Costner project called Wyatt Earp. The Costner film was lavish in budget (industry insiders put it at $80 million).

In the early part of '93, Costner traveled to Tombstone and made the town council an intriguing offer he thought they could not resist. He would spend $6.5 million to make over the existing town to look as it did in 1881. The cantankerous town immediately split into two camps with those opposing the change prevailing. Their logic was that they didn't want some Hollywood types coming in and ruining A boomer guards his mining claim as the flurry continues to establish other markers throughout the Tombstone area. the authenticity of "their" Tombstone. The irony is that despite their rustic charm, the vast majority of Tombstone's present buildings are not from its heyday. They date from the 1920s and '30s (keep in mind the original Tombstone burned down at least twice before its third birthday). Result: the Costner movie went to New Mexico where Tombstone was built on a cold knoll south of Santa Fe.

Today Tombstone continues to bask in the glow of worldwide fascination. Thanks to the new movies, tourism is at an all-time high. And the myth of the dusty, windswept frontier Babylon has settled in for the duration.

Somewhere, Ed Schieffelin must be chuckling.