TOMBSTONES Chapter Seven

I can't be certain what 28 year old Thomas McLaury (above) was thinking that Sunday afternoon, 25 July,  1880. I'm sure he was anxious and angry, watching 9 strangers approach the ranch he shared with his older brother. But then Tom was often angry, and anger masks thought. At just 5 foot 3 inches tall Tom found a reputation as a hot head to be a leveler in social conflicts. His opponents and even friends never knew when Tom might turn violent, and that hid how smart he was. With his men at hand suddenly outnumbered, and with 5 of the men pulling up outside his corral wearing soldier blue, and with 6 freshly re-branded stolen army mules in his corral, Tom knew he would have to do some pretty fast thinking to avoid a shootout with the U.S. Government in his own front yard.

The mules had been stolen 4 days earlier from Camp Rucker, an outpost in the cool elevations of White Canyon in the Chiricahua (chee-ree-KAH-wah) or wild turkey mountains, about 35 miles east of Tombstone and an equal distance north of the Sonora border. The garrison of 45 soldiers and 100 Indian scouts where supposed to discourage Apache raids, and mules were essential to their existence. Pride and regulations demanded the stolen property be returned, so the next morning Lieutenant Joseph H. Hurst set out with 4 men to locate the missing animals. But the civil war veteran seems to have been pretty certain the thieves were not Apache, because he headed straight for Tombstone. He arrived there on 24 July, seeking out the federal authority, the Deputy United States' Marshal. His name was Virgil Earp.

The McLaury boys - there were 8 of them and 3 girls - were all short and well educated. Their father had been a judge back in Iowa, and all the boys studied law. What interrupted the father's dreams and defined the son's lives was 5 years of bloodletting. Like all wars, the American Civil War left a "lost" generation in its wake - traumatized, emotionally drained, and in varying degrees feeling abused, cheated and betrayed. Only the eldest son, Will, went on to pass the bar. He started his law practice as a carpetbagger in Fort Worth, Texas. His younger brothers, Tom and 33 year old Robert Findley "Frank" McLaury, had intended upon joining him. But in 1878 the lure of quick money around the Tombstone silver strike distracted Frank and Tom McLaury to the Arizona desert.

Marshal Virgil Earp (above) was certain any white thieves could most likely be found in the violent little mill town of Charleston.  He sent a telegraph to an informant there - Dave Estes - and looking for safety in numbers he brought along popular Tombstone town marshal Fred White, as well his own deputized brothers Morgan and Wyatt Earp. On Sunday morning all nine men rode the 8 miles west to where Dave Estes suggested the mules could be found, south of Charleston,  on the west bank of the San Pedro River, along Babocomari creek - on the McLaury ranch.

There were six mules in the corral. Outnumbered, 5 foot 4 inch tall Frank McLaury (above) allowed the animals to be inspected. The brands on their left hind quarters read "D.S.", however the uneven nature of the wounds made it obvious to a skeptic that the brand had been recently altered from "U.S.". The inspection strengthened Lt. Hurst's resolve to reclaim the mules. However Tom McLaury's temper abruptly changed the conversation. Even though he had never met the Earps before - Tom rarely went into Tombstone - he pointed at them and warned, "If they ever again follow us as close as you did, they will have a fight!" As usual Frank stepped in to calm his brother, while neighboring ranch owner Frank Patterson took over the negotiations.

Lieutenant Joseph Hurst was no naive West Point shave tail, easily frightened by threats. He'd been on the frontier for years. Before that he had risen in the ranks in the Army of the Potomac, promoted to first lieutenant for bravery at Fredricksburg in 1863, wounded at Chancellorsville, and again at Spottsylvania Courthouse in 1864.  But he also knew that as a military officer he could not seize the mules, nor arrest civilians. Marshall Virgil Earp could do both, but to arrest the volcanic Tom seemed to run the risk of bloodshed. So Hurst allowed himself to be convinced that Frank McLaury would return the mules later, after Tom McLaury had been distracted. Hurst informed the Earps of his decision and the mule rescue party returned to Tombstone without the mules. However, the next morning, before he returned to Camp Rucker,  Hurst warned Virgil Earp of Tom McLaury's threat.

The delay raises the question of why Hurst did not warn Virgil at the McLaury ranch. It seems likely to me, that the Lieutenant sized up Marshall Earp pretty quickly as another hot head, and realized that Tom McLaury's belligerent threat might very well have pushed the Marshall to confrontation. And the 4 men Lt. Hurst was directly responsible for were not trained or armed for a free for all gun fight. The Earps would later imply that Hurst had been duped by Patterson and Frank McLaury. But I suspect Joseph Hurst just decided 6 mules were not worth his men's lives.  But whatever agreement Lt. Hurst thought had been reached, the mules were not returned.

Not that Hurst could allow the matter to drop. In a notice posted in the Friday, 30 July 1880 edition of the Tombstone Epitaph, the Lieutenant offered $35 for the return of the mules and $25 for the arrest of the thieves, whom he identified as "Pony" Diehl, Augustus S. Hansbrough and Sherman MacMasters. Then he went further, accusing Frank Patterson, Frank McLaury and Jim Johnson of hiding the stolen property. Pointedly he did not challenge Tom McLaury.  Frank respond a week later, in the Thursday, 5 August edition of the rival Tombstone Daily Nugget. Frank claimed to have assured the Army Lieutenant, "I would do what I could to assist him. In the course of the next day I saw Diehl...Diehl replied that he knew nothing of the stock...and I interested myself no farther about it."

But Frank McLaury added that Lieutenant Hurst was "...a coward, a vagabond, a rascal, and a malicious liar." Frank even suggested that Hurst might have stolen and sold the mules himself. "My name is well known in Arizona," Frank wrote, "and thank God that this is the first time in my life that the name of dishonesty was ever attached to me..." Having delivered that line with a straight face, Frank managed to avoid mentioning the central secret which supported the Tombstone money machine - most of the beef consumed daily by the miners of Tombstone, was stolen, and most of that from Sonora. In fact the closest allies and neighbors of the McLaury brothers were the owners of one of most successful ranches in southern Arizona, and thus the one of the largest dealers in stolen beef - the Clantons.

The large Clanton family trickled into Arizona beginning in 1873, by way of Tennessee, Texas and California. They might have stayed in the last two states if they had been willing to fight. Instead both times Newman Hayes "Old Man" Clanton (above) chose the smarter approach and moved his family on.  As the Tombstone mines began drawing hungry miners, in 1877, "Old Man" Clanton took the opportunity to move into moving cattle, even introducing Sonora rustling to his new neighbors, Tom and Frank McLaury.  Where both McLaury brothers were short and dark, the Clantons were tall and described by one who knew them as, "..true blondes (who) rode tall in the saddle...extremely handsome ...and very affable..." And under the calming guidence of the "Old Man", they built a hill top adobe near Lewis Springs, about 5 miles south of Charleston, and 12 miles west of Tombstone. From there "Old Man Clanton" could see for miles in the dry desert air.  No lawmen would ever get the drop on them the way Lt. Hurst and the Earps had surprised the McLaury brothers.

By 1880 "Old Man" Clanton was 64 years old but still active and successful. Most of the labor on the Clanton Arizona ranch was done by second son,  35 year old Phineas "Phin" Fay Clanton, who had several arrests for rustling but no convictions. These days Phin stayed close to the ranch, along with his brother-in-law August M. Smith. Meanwhile both 33 year old Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton and 18 year old William Harrison "Billy" Clanton  (above) were well known, if not always welcomed in Charleston, Tombstone, and Sonora.

Newman Hayes Clanton's (above) rustling empire was doing so well,  the Old Man needed legitimate businesses to launder his profits, That November he purchased a house and a saloon in Charleston, on Pioneer Street. 

And with John Peters "Johnny" Ringo (above) he claimed  320 acres in the Animas Valley, New Mexico, at a site called San Simon Cienega. Their stated intent was to grow alfalfa as feed for cattle. It all tied together into what was called the "rustlers trail". 

Running across arid desert from watering hole to watering hole, this production line of stolen beef began at the northern mouth of Guadalupe Canyon on the Sonora border, headed north up the Animas Valley,  then on to the eastern slopes of the Chiricahuas mountains, west through Skeleton Canyon (or Tex canyon) into Arizona, across Sulphur Springs Valley to the Dragoon Mountains, through the South Pass near Tombstone, then southwest to the Soldiers "water" Hole and right to the back door to the Clanton Ranch at the eastern foot of the Huachuca Mountains.

Gathered together in this enterprise were a hardy and hard group of entrepreneurs referred to as the "Cowboys of Cochise County " - Charles "Pony Diehl" Ray,  his life long friend Sherman McMasters.  alcoholic marksman "Curly Bill" Brocius (above),  30 year old John Peters "Johnny" Ringo...

...Billy "The Kid" Claiborne (above), Harry "The Kid" Head, the nervous Billy "The Kid" Grounds, the unlucky Richard "Zwing" Hunt...

... 23 year old occasional lawman Frank Stillwell (above), 30 year old ex-Texas Ranger Elliot Larkin Ferguson AKA Pete Spence, William "Bill" Lang,  Stagecoach robber  and ex-jewelry store owner "Notorious" Jim Crane, gregarious and dangerous Florentino Cruz, Richard "Dixie Lee Grey", Charlie Snow, Bill Byers and gunman Scott Cooley - among others.

Rightly or wrongly, these men would be cast as villains in the story of the October 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A few weeks after the 1880 confrontation on their ranch, the McLaury brothers spotted Marshal Virgil Earp on the streets of Charleston.  Tom McLaury made it a point to challenge the lawman once again, repeating now in person the threat he had made to Lt. Hurst. Thus the unresolved confrontation over  6 stolen army mules set the McLaury's on a collision course with the Earp family.

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TOMBSTONES Chapter Six

I know what the cowboy Jim Hughs was thinking that July afternoon, of 1881. He was thinking he was about to get very, very rich. He was a hand on the Clanton Ranch 12 miles outside of Tombstone, and experienced in the rustling parties that stole cattle in Sonora, Mexico, and sold them to the butchers in Arizona. But this hot afternoon, he was after not after beef, but silver. On the trail below, 15 riders were leading 30 burros northward through the narrow confines of Skeleton Canyon. On the burros' backs Jim Hughs believed was either $75,000 or $40,000 or $2,500 worth of silver Mexican Peos. Unfortunately Hughes and his little gang of desperate rustlers had not thought to ask one simple question. Where had all that silver come from?

All Mexican legal tender was produced by 11 privitley operated mints, such as the large one in Hermosillo, Sonora. They bought refined ore directly from mines and converted it into silver and gold centavos and pesoes  (above) of various denominations. In 1884 the United States Treasury Department cautioned potential investors in Mexico, "The bulk and weight of silver currency is a serious embarresment." That was putting it mildly. The report went on to explain, "...grouped around the doors and enterances of the principle banking houses, professional porters...gain a livilihood by carrying loads of coins....from one part of the city to another." The weight of the silver meant commerce in Sonora would only move as fast as men and burros could carry it. And spies could travel much faster than that - faster even than a man could dream.

By 1881 there were close to 6,000 miners north of the border in Arizona, following the silver veins beneath the Tombstone Hills, and extracting and refining the ore had become only the second most difficult task in mining. The greater challenge was feeding the miners. Vegetables and fruit spoiled within minutes in the 100 degree temperatures. Canned goods had been available for almost a century, but the double seal can, which was truly air tight, would not be invented until 1888.  It was still common, particularly in the desert, to open cans only to find spoiled food inside. That left Tombstone miners surviving on sourdough bread, potatoes and legumes - all of which required scarce water to prepare. And then there was meat.

The story told by Jim Hughes, was that he had been sitting in a Sonoran cantina when he overheard members of the "Estrada Gang" celebrating a successful raid on the town of Monterrey. Amid the boasts about banks robbed and churches looted, the bandits planned to transport their booty across the border for safe keeping in the United States.  As unlikely as the details of this story may be, it was clear that Jim Hughes heard something about a silver caravan and hurried north to the hilltop Clanton ranch. There he informed Billy Clanton, and an ambush party quickly formed.

A cow had the advantage of delivering its self to the kitchen back door. By 1880 there were 8,000 cattle along the San Pedro River Valley, north of the border.  But it took 100 acres of sparse Arizona mesquite and prickly pear, and 2 to 3 years to raise a cow to slaughtering age. Writing for the short lived Tombstone Daily Nugget, columnist Richard Rule admitted the unpleasant truth, "There is no doubt that most of the cattle sold in the vicinity of Tombstone... are stolen.". Rustlers were the most successful ranchers in Arizona, a state of affairs encouraged because the businessmen and women of Tombstone had little incentive to inquire as to the source of the beef, only its price. Continued the observant Mr. Rule, "A good many of the cowboys...live in the guise of simple cattle farmers. Those who make a business of stealing...have a pretty good reputation". The fundamental advantage - and flaw - of capitalism, is that people ask few questions as to where your money came from, only how much you have. And the more money you have, the fewer questions they are inclined to ask. And that rule was about to begin working against the rustlers.

Just about the time Jim Hughes was taking a bead on the bandits in Skeleton Canyon, life long corporate railroad man William Barstow Strong  (above) was being promoted to President of the Boston based "Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" railroad.  His advancement was a reward for his dedication to the corporate goal of reaching a Pacific port. 

The problem was the Southern Pacific railroad controlled all rail lines and ports in California. And beginning in 1876, the Big Four owners of the SP had even laid rails east along the 32nd parallel from San Diego, reaching Tuscon, Arizona in 1880 and crossing the San Pedro River at Benson. Southern Pacific President Charles Crocker could boast, "The earnings we have achieved since reaching Tuscon have been great"  The SP had reached El Paso, Texas in May of 1881. Faced with this road block, the resourceful Mr. Strong had cast his eyes upon the broiling Sonoran port of Guaymas.

As the Mexican riders reached a formation called the Devil's Kitchen, near the New Mexico entrance of  Skeleton Canyon (above, left center),  Hugh's finger tightened around the trigger of his rifle. His shot was instantly joined by the gun shots of his 8 partners Six of the Mexicans fell in the first volley. However, the noise panicked the burros, and they bolted. So the Americans switched targets.

What William Strong promised new Mexican President Porfirio Diaz in 1877 was that railroads would bind his nation together. Under Mexican subsidiaries, and funded by Mexican government subsidies, the AT&SF built the Mexican Central Line, which drove 800 miles north from Mexico City to the Rio Grande River where it connected with the AT&SF in El Paso Texas. 

At the same time Strong's Sonora Railroad started in Guaymas on the gulf of California, and headed 900 miles east toward the Central Line in Monterrey.  But from the moment the Sonora Railroad reached the state capital of Hermosillo - in December of 1880 - profits tempted the construction north, 175 miles to the American border, where it could connect with an 88 mile long spur of the AT&SF, the New Mexico and Arizona Railroad, which would reach the mill town of Fairbank, Arizona, just 9 miles from Tombstone, in 1882.

When the smoke cleared there were 25 burros, dead or screaming in the narrow canyon. The 11 remaining Mexican riders surrendered. According to the legend the Americans climbed down the canyon walls and silenced the wounded animals. And then they executed the human witnesses. And only then did the realization slowly dawn upon the cowboys that they now had now way getting the silver out of the canyon. Legend claims they buried the hoard, intending on returning to fetch it later. But my guess is, there was very little silver in the burro's loads. The ambush had been a bust.

By the hot dry summer of 1881, the mining town of Tombstone and its satellites of Fairbank, Charleston, Contention and Bisbee (above), were close enough to the rail lines that not only could silver ore make its way out, but luxury goods and cattle could make their way in. And there were 8,000 cows now being raised in the San Pedro Valley, and the railroads were able to deliver beefier cows to within miles of the Tombstone mines. And these were not the scrawny hardy Texas longhorns but heftier, blooded stock fed on the rich grasses from wetter climes. Even though 6% of the cattle could be expected to die en route, the price per pound delivered by rail lowered the profit margin for the rustlers, and promised to soon drive them out of business.

Just about a month after the Skeleton Canyon massacre -  on Thursday, 11 August, 1881 -  7 Americans camped for the night just south of the Mexico border, in Sonora, in Guadalupe Canyon. Historians and western affectionadoes still argue about what these venture capitalists were doing on such a popular smuggling route, at the junction of three jurisdictions - Arizona, New Mexico and Sonora, old Mexico. But the simplest explanation seems the most likely. They had invested their sweat equity in stealing 80 head of cattle in Sonora, and were  driving them back to the United States to sell and butcher them, thus destroying the evidence.

During the night the cattle were restless, and the leader, Newman Hays "Old Man" Clanton (above), sent Harry Ernshaw and Billy Byers out to guard the herd. 

Just at dawn, on the morning of Friday, 13 August 1881, the two men rode back into camp, where Newman Clanton had started breakfast. Charley Snow,  19  year old Dixie Lee" Gray and Billy Lang, were just waking up.   But James Crane were still in his bedroll, having arrived the night before.  Greeting the returning men as they dismounted, Charley Snow heard something the others missed, and started to draw his gun. That was the signal for the ambush to explode. Snow was killed by the first shot. Gunfire then cut down Old Man Clanton as he bent over the campfire. 

Billy Byers started to run, "...but had not gone forty feet when I was shot across my body, but I didn’t fall, and in a few more steps was hit in my arm, knocked the pistol out of my hand and I fell down.” Harry Ernshaw and Billy Lang  (above) sought cover behind a bush, before trying to run as well. Billy Lang was shot dead and Harry was wounded, a bullet slicing off part of his nose. But he kept running. Young "Dixie Lee" Gray was hit three times in the chest and died on his bedroll.

Byers later told the Tombstone Nugget, "When I saw the Mexicans begin stripping the bodies, I took off what clothes I had, even my finger ring, and lay stretched out with my face down, and as I was all bloody from my wounds...they never touched me, but as one fellow passed me on horseback he fired several shots at me, one grazing the side of my head, and the others striking my side, throwing the dirt over me. But I kept perfectly still and he rode on.”

Harry Ernshaw made it on foot 15 miles north to the new Gray ranch in the Animus mountains where Dixie Lee's older brother John was waiting. They returned the next morning with a wagon and 20 men. They found Billy Byers wounded and delirious, wandering in the desert. Charley Snow's body had been scavenged and was buried where it lay. The bodies of Old Man Clanton, Dixie Lee Gray and James Crane  were all loaded on the wagon and carried to the Gray Ranch were they were buried. The anarchy at the border had reached a new level.  

If it was not clear before to the rustlers and thieves in and around Tombstone, Arizona, it was certainly clear now. My guess is that just before he died, Old Man Clanton, thought that life was getting very hard for an unrestrained capitalist in this part of the country.

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TOMBSTONES Chapter Five

I am confident that during March of 1879 Edward Schieffelin (above) was suffering from ennui. He had new clothes, he was bathing and eating regularly, and probably for the first time in his life he was being treated with respect by strangers. But the man who had spent half his life alone, seeking his fortune over the next hill, admitted, "I never wanted to be rich, I just wanted to get close to the earth and see mother nature's gold." His discovery of the Tombstone silver lode had robbed him of whatShakespeare's Hamlet called "...the name of action". So in Philadelphia, he left negotiations for the million dollar deal to his brother Alfred and their partner, Richard Gird.

The principle investors in the richest silver strike since the Comstock lode, Frank and Phillip Corbin, had built their fortune (above) making door locks and metal trimmings for coffins. They knew nothing about mining. But because they agreed how best to profit from the Lucky Cuss and Tough Nut claims, they were welcomed as partners. 

The new corporate offices for The Tombstone Milling and Mining Company, at 425 Walnut Street in Philadelphia, issued half a million shares of stock, which were quickly snapped up by investors. Almost over night Ed Schieffelin was a millionaire. And there was more to come.

Within a year there were 3,000 working mines between the Dragoon and Mule mountains and the San Pedro River.  Besides the original four, the richest claims would be the Grand Central, the Goodenough, the Vizna, the Empire, the Tranquility, the Sydney, The Girard, The Sulphuret and The Bob Ingersoll. But none were as rich as the first. At depth the Tough Nut's vein was sometimes 20 feet wide, and required 75 men to extract it and another 80 to mill what it produced. The vein in the Grand Central mine was 8 to 12 feet wide.

Tombstone Mining and Milling sold half of the Lucky Cuss for $10,000, using the cash to fund construction of stamping mills, under newly named Superintendent Richard Gird.

Over 500 tons of ore each day from all the mines had to be transported by 16 mule team ore wagons 8 miles west to the San Pedro river, at a cost of $3.50 a ton. Along both banks, 7 deafening stamp mills were constructed, surrounded by almost identical reverberating villages of between 200 and 600 residents each, named Charleston, Contention, Fairbank and Millville.  Here running water or steam driven steel hammers, 140 "stamps" in total, pounded the ore 24 hours a day until it was reduced to powder. Separated in baths of cyanide, and then heated to 1,763 degrees Fahrenheit, the 90 % pure liquid silver was then poured into molds. Carried by stagecoach to Benson, where it met the The New Mexico and Arizona branch of the Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe railroad, the ingots were then shipped the bars  to El Paso, Texas for ultimate refining.

In one year alone- between April 1881 and April 1882 - the San Pedro mills shipped $1.3 million worth of silver bullion to El Paso - about $30 million today.   In just 4 years greater Tombstone grew from 100 to 8,000 white males. Adding women, African Americans, Hispanics and Chinese, the real total was probably closer to 10,000 souls living in the Sonoran desert without direct access to fresh water, food, or plumbing. 

Everything had to be brought in by wagon or burro. And still the town eventually supported Vogan's 10 pin Bowling Alley And Bar, a gym, a book store, 4 churches, an ice house, one school, 2 banks, 3 newspapers, several billiard parlors, an ice cream parlor, 2 Italian, 1 French, a couple of Chinese and several Mexican restaurants, as well as many that promised "Home Cooking" and a few which actually delivered it,  110 saloons, 42 lawyers, at least 14 gambling and dance halls and at least a dozen brothels.

The Can Can French restaurant advertised "Game as wild as a tornado, chicken as tender as a maiden’s heart, ice-cream as delicious as a day in June, dessert that would charm the soul of a South Sea Islander and smiles as bright as the morning sun..." The Grand Hotel boasted 16 rooms, each "..fitted with walnut furniture and carpeted...spring mattresses that would tempt even a sybarite, toilet stands and fixtures... the walls papered, and...each room having windows." There was even limited telephone service by 1882.

Most famous (or infamous) business in Tombstone would be the tiny Bird Cage Theatre- open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week after it opened Christmas eve 1881.  It was named for the  twin balcony, 7 bedrooms 2nd floor,  suspended from the ceiling- their physical load transferred to the thick adobe exterior walls (below).  Their moral load carried by the patrons seemingly without effort 

A beer at the bar cost a dollar - equivalent to $22 today - extra if you ordered it from one of the suspended "cages" (above). These were single use spaces - prostitution being pound for pound and minute for minute the most profitable business in Tombstone. 

According to the New York Times the Birdcage was "...the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street (New Orleans) and (San Francisco's) the Barbary Coast."

It was also small. Past the bar (above), the main hall was just 15 X 15 feet, not including the stage and orchestra pit. With summer temperatures routinely reaching 118°F, and with open flame gas jets providing the only lighting in the windowless building, crowded with warm bodies and clouds of cigar smoke from the basement gambling parlor, tempers and oxygen must have both been in short supply.

The only thing holding the level of sin at bay seemed to have been the lack of water, and by March of 1881 the Huachuca Water Company had trapped the flow from 3 springs behind a dam  (above) built across Miller canyon, 6,500 feet up in the Huachuca Mountains, southwest of Tombstone. Gravity forced the fresh water through the 7 inch iron pipe across 26 miles of desert to a 1 million gallon reservoir just above Tombstone. The water must have been hot.

Boasted the "Epitaph", "It is safe to say that no other town in America, of its size and population, is better supplied with amusements...Only last evening...there were meetings of firemen, Odd fellows, city council, the literary and debating society, together with a ball, a theatre, a dancing school, and a couple of private parties, all at full blast! Hurrah for Tombstone! (above)"

The town's economy rested on the strong backs and arms of its 6,000 male miners and mill workers  - mostly Cornish, Irish, Poles and Germans (above). They earned the union wage of $4 for every 10 hour shift in the tunnels. Between that sum and the pay for teamsters and support staff, $168,000 in cash was injected into Tombstone's economy each week. 

And just about as many faro dealers, bartenders, south side prostitutes, lawyers, restaurant owners, hotel clerks, bakers, Chinese laundrymen, Mexican laborers, opium den operators, life insurance salesmen and politicians did their very best to take every dime of it.  It was a miner, whose addictions had reduced him to a dish washer, who bestowed upon Tombstone it's official nickname - not El Dorado (golden city) but Helldorado.

Still, in its bloodiest year - 1881 - Tombstone, Arizona officially recorded only 6 homicides. And 3 of those were by police officers, in the shoot out at the O.K. Corral. Over the decade between the town's founding and water flooding into the mines, there were 130 "murders and self-defense" gun deaths, 18 "accidental" gun deaths and 15 self inflicted gunshot deaths. That low a death toll, when compared to the higher rates in outlying mill towns, can only be ascribed to ordinance Number 9, imposing a $25 fine for carrying a deadly weapon "...in the hand or upon the person or otherwise....within the limits of said city of Tombstone..." Guns were still readily available, but the slight delay in accessing them seems to have made all the difference.

Meanwhile Mose Drachman, resident of the little mill town of Charleston (above, bottom) - population about 350 -  and without benefit of ordinance Number 9 -  remembered "...it was not an uncommon sight to see one or more dead men lying in the street when going to work...If a dead man had a gun on him and was shot from the front, no one bothered to look for the killer.” 

Charleston's only employee was sheriff, judge, treasurer and Justice of the Peace, James Burnett, "...a known scoundrel..." "Justice Jim" operated on a strictly cash basis, kept the town treasury in his pocket, recorded no records and favored the "open carry" approach to justice.

One of the few murders in Charleston to ever go to trial occurred outside Harry Queen's saloon on 1 October, 1881.  Braggart and hothead James Hickey was on the tail end of 3 day bender, and out of money. As he staggered out the door he ran into Billy "The Kid" Claiborne (above). Hickey had been looking for the popular Claiborne for days, spoiling for a fight and calling him "a prick eating son-of-a-bitch".  The Kid tried to walk away from the drunk, and warned Hickey that if he kept following, Claiborne would kill him. When Hickey kept coming, Billy shot him down, and when Hickey got up, The Kid shot him once more in the face, killing him. It took 2 trials but Billy Claiborne was eventually found to have killed in self defense.   

More typical were 2 other murders in Justice Burnetts'  jurisdiction of Charleston (above). First, the   January of 1881 shooting of W.P. Scheider, chief engineer of the Corbin Mill, who was gunned down by Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce, AKA Micheal O'Rourke  -  and the March 1882 killing of 26 year old Martin Ruter Peel, who was murdered in full view of witnesses by 2 masked men.  Martin was an engineer for Tombstone Mining and Milling, and the son of a prominent judge. Yet no one was ever charged in his murder. O'Rourke was arrested and was threatened by a lynch mob of miners and cowboys - encouraged by Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo. The lynching was blocked by among others Wyatt Earp, who managed to lock up the killer in Tombstone.  But Johnny-Behind -The- Deuce never stood trial because he escaped jail. Thus the "Open Carry" version of justice was far from open or just.

Albert Schieffelin stayed around Tombstone long enough to build the largest adobe structure in the southwest, where men could take their wives to hear music and see theatre -  Schieffelin Hall. Then he left for Los Angeles, where he died in 1885, of the consumption he contracted in the mines. Richard Gerd ran the mills for years, eventually selling his share of the flooding mines for $800,000. But the finder, Ed Schieffelin ,  never returned to Tombstone. 

Eventually Ed (above) bought a ranch near the Schieffelin homestead in the Rogue Valley in Oregon. But even a wife and child, and mansions outside of San Francisco and in Los Angeles could not hold him. In May of 1897 Ed suffered a heart attack, alone in a California mountain cabin, still looking for "Mother Nature's Gold". When he died, Ed was not yet 50 years old.  He left his wife Mary, "...all...real and personal properties, in...California", and gave the rest of his fortune to his only surviving brother, Jay.

As his will requested Ed was buried 3 miles east of Tombstone, near the dry wash where he had first found ore. In his coffin he was provided with a pick. a shovel and his old canteen, should the afterlife offer him opportunities for more prospecting. His tombstone (above) is, as he requested, "a monument, such as prospectors build when locating a mining claim." It was as if he were saying this was where his life ended, after 15 years of searching and 20 years before his death.

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