Tombstone, Arizona
Tombstone is probably the most famous mining town in America. In the summer of 1877 prospector Ed Schieffelin was working the hills east of the San Pedro River in the southeast portion of the Arizona Territory, when he came across a vein of very rich silver ore in a high plateau called Goose Flats. When Schieffelin filed his mining claim, he named it the "Tombstone" in honor of the irony of the situation. He had told a soldier that he was out collecting rocks, and been told that the only type of rock he was likely to find prospecting among the waterless hills and warring Apaches of the area, would be his tombstone.
Tombstone town was founded in 1879, taking its name from the mining claim, and soon became a boomtown. Fueled by mine wealth, Tombstone was a city of 1000 by the beginning of 1881, and within another year Tombstone had become the county seat of a new county (Cochise County) with a population between 5,000 and 15,000 (more than San Francisco at that time), and services including refrigeration (with ice cream and later even ice skating), running water, telegraph and limited telephone service. Capitalists and businessmen moved in from the Eastern U.S. Mining was carried out by immigrants from Cornwall and Europe. An extensive service industry (laundry, construction, restaurants, fine hotels, etc.) was provided by Chinese and other immigrants.
"The Town Too Tough to Die," home to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, the Clantons -- and the infamous OK Corral, Boothill Cemetery, live shootouts, exhibits, restaurants, and numerous historic buildings, -- is a mere 16 miles from Sierra Vista.
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