Tombstone, Arizona: Silver, the Earps, and the Flood That Drowned It

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Tombstone got its name from a warning. In 1877 Army scout Ed Schieffelin set out alone to prospect in Apache country, and fellow scout Al Sieber told him the only rock he would find would be his own tombstone. He found a silver vein instead, and within a few years the mesa called Goose Flats held the most productive silver district in Arizona. The mines gave up 32 million troy ounces, and the money hauled in luxuries by mule team: four churches, a bowling alley, an ice cream parlor, imported European wine, 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, and the Bird Cage Theatre, which reportedly never closed for eight years.

This episode treats the famous gunfight as one chapter in a larger story. It casts the feud between the Earps and the Cochise County Cowboys as a clash between Northern Republican business interests in town and Southern Democratic ranchers and rustlers outside it, sharpened when the Cowboys began robbing stagecoaches. Then it turns to the forces that really broke the town: two devastating fires, an aquifer that flooded the richest shafts, and a collapse in the price of silver. Tombstone survived as a county seat until 1929 and was revived by the Western craze of the 1950s.

• The gunfight of October 26, 1881 lasted about 30 seconds and took place in a vacant lot on Fremont Street, not inside the O.K. Corral.
• In 1880s Cochise County the word cowboy was an insult meaning outlaw. Legitimate cattlemen called themselves ranchers.
• During the fire of May 1882, townspeople dynamited their own buildings to create firebreaks because there was too little water pressure to fight the flames.
• Giant Cornish engines were pumping 576,000 gallons a day out of the mines by 1884. A fire in May of 1886 destroyed the pumps, and the mines flooded for good.
• A Chinese businesswoman known as China Mary brokered much of the town's labor until her death in 1906, and a rose cutting planted in 1885 now covers over 8,000 square feet.