"Tombstone Arizona "The Town too Tough to... " a Tombstone Travel Page by Lionman

Tombstone Arizona is perhaps one of the most famous locations in all of the USA as far as the legands of the Old Wild West are concerned and it lives up to its reputation.

If you mentally remove the modern SUVs and Pickups the streets look almost unchanged from the 1880's and it is very easy to half close one's eyes and see them filled with the bustling throng of heavily armed and rough looking cowboys and ladies in the fancy bustled dresses and cute little hats of that bygone era. Of course the main street would have been deep with horse manure and rutted mud and the noise and smell overwhelming, but it is still not hard to imagine real gunfighters facing off in that wide main street or being shot to death in those narrow alleyways.

Indeed if one arrives in town before noon there are almost always "historical re-enactments" occuring on the streets, with tough looking hombres with droopy moustaches, black hats and colt 45s, lounging about looking mean on almost every corner, as well as flightly looking "dance-hall girls" flouncing around in glorious old western dresses and fancy ankle boots. It gives one the uncanny feeling that one has stepped through a "time-portal" in "back to the future" only to find the side walks dotted with the fierce ghosts of the 1880's scattered among the tourists and locals of today!

If you love the old western clothing as much as we do, on the corner facing the legendary Crystal Palace saloon, there is a fabulous clothes shop run by two sparky dressmaking gals, where one can purchase just about every kind of 1880's clothing for men or women. There are fancy coats, delightful flouncy dresses, elgant ladies old style ankle boots and stylish men's riding boots, sinister "Tombstone-style" black cowboy hats, gambler's jackets, fancy leather and silk waistcoats and trousers. There is even a rack of fabulous 1880's style silk wedding dresses which my wife regretted not having discovered before our marriage. Highly recommended shopping.

There are several such shops in town however, so explore them all and don't buy anything until you have checked that something even better isn't available in another shop for a better price, as some items are surprisingly expensive.

The boardwalk is dotted with signs showing where various infamous figures were shot down and died and of course the OK Corral itself needs no introduction as the location of the legendary gunfight between the Clantons, Wyatt Earp and Doc Halliday.

Just outside town on the way in from the North, is perhaps the most famous cemetary on earth, where one can find the graves of a dozen gunfighters of mythic status as well as a "trading post" where every imaginable kind of grim souvenier is available.

I especially liked this old Ford hearse with its amusing and macabre inscriptions.