Tombstone — Decipher the Earp Conspiracy

Tombstone was born in 1877 from Ed Schieffelin's discovery, a prospector who found silver where soldiers promised him his tombstone. Schieffelin Hall, built in 1881-1882 and inaugurated on December 9, 1882, testifies to this sudden prosperity with its Victorian red brick facade and 600 seats. The town's first permanent theater, it hosted shows that entertained the 15,000 inhabitants who came seeking fortune in Cochise County's silver mines.

Allen Street quickly became the vital artery of this boomtown, stretching 1.5 km through Tombstone's commercial heart. Its restored Victorian buildings from the 1880s-1890s housed saloons, hotels and shops where miners, cowboys and lawmen crossed paths. It was on this street that rivalries between the Earp and Clanton clans developed, tensions that would culminate in the OK Corral gunfight on October 26, 1881.

Big Nose Kate's Saloon perpetuates the memory of Kate Elder, Doc Holliday's tumultuous companion at 417 E. Allen Street. This saloon-museum in a restored period building evokes Tombstone's nightlife during the silver rush, when the town had more saloons than churches. Kate Elder, nicknamed 'Big Nose Kate', embodies those Western women who defied the social conventions of the Victorian era.

The Bird Cage Theatre, opened in 1881 at 517 E. Allen Street, concentrates all of Tombstone's violence with its 100 documented gunfights recorded by the Tombstone Epitaph. Its 14 private 'cages' suspended from balconies for wealthy spectators witnessed the bloodiest showdowns in the Far West. The bullet holes, still visible on walls and ceiling, physically testify to the conflicts that tore the town apart between 1881 and 1889.

Your investigation closes at Ed Schieffelin's monument at Boothill Graveyard, cemetery founded in 1878 where over 250 characters from the era rest. Facing this tombstone of Tombstone's discoverer, who died in 1897, you measure destiny's irony: he who sought his grave ultimately found silver, then founded a legend. The secrets you take away reveal a more complex truth than Hollywood westerns.