November 14, 1937 Tombstone -"The Town Too Tough to Die"

(N. H. Rose photo.) (N. H. Rose photo.) Big Ed Schielfelin. the prospector Graves in Boothill cemetery oi the (N. H. Rose photo.) (N. H. Rose photo.) (N. H. Rose photo.) who discovered rich silver deposits Nellie Cashman. boarding house John Holliday. a dentist who gave five first men to be hcrnged legally Wyatt Earp, once Tombston.'s No. William M. (Billy) Breakenridge. Jolut H. Behan. who got the lob of in Arizona and who is given credit keeper and ••cam p angel" of up the business of filling teeth with in the town of Tomb.tone. That was 1 manipulator of the hand gun, a. a fearless law and order man who .hem of Cochi.e county. a $4D.DDD.a- ••hell roarin'" Tombstone. for founding the to~ of Tombstone. gold for that of filling men with lead. S3years ago. a. the marker reveal •. he appeared eleven year. ago. became deputy sherif. year plum that Wyatt Earp want.d. Where Gunmen Played a Story of the Earps and Game with Death Their Enemies

Sixty years ago men, carrying Where men live dangerously All Tombstone knew that a have it," cried Wyatt. "Throw little more than unvarnished for high stakes, as they did in showdown was due. up your hands! " ordered Virgil. courage and well oiled guns, Tombstone, courage and the gun On the night of Oct. 25, 1881, "Don't shoot, I don't want to were beating their way through frequently rule. Men held life Ike Clanton and Tom McLowery fight," pleaded Billy Clanton. the western bad lands towa,.rda cheaply and sometimes killed on drove into Tombstone in a light Firing began at once. Ike clump of desolate hills in south· slight provocation. wagon. Doc Holliday, enraged Clanton and Tom McLowery eastern Arizona, just a shake Dick Lloyd, a cowboy on a over the outlaws' insinuations bellowed they had no guns-a north of the Mexican border. drunken spree, yelling "Whoo- that he knew something about condition their foemen did not The lure was silver. pee," rode his horse into O'Neil's the Benson stage murders, cqr- know. The Earps and Doc Hol- saloon near town, right into the By FRANK CIPRIANI nered Clanton, daring him to liday coolly and murderously midst of a hot poker game. The fight. "You've been threatening kept on dealing hot lead. Ike Tombstone, Ariz. players, annoyed over the Inter- to kill me," he shouted. "We're Clanton fled. Tom McLowery ACKin 1877 big Ed Schief· ruption, shot him off his horse, man to man now-get out your retreated. Billy Clanton, only a felin never dreamed of sent for the coroner, and reo gun and fight." boy, but a brave one, and Frank B f 0 u n din g "The Town sumed their poker game. It happened that Clanton car- McLowery would not yield. That's Too Tough to Die." He ried no arms at the moment. was too busy prospecting for • • • Modem Tombstone. the" town that's too tough to die," Today it has fewer than 1,000inhabitants: once i(had The Earp boys appeared at this • • • rich ores, and' dodging the bad Stuttering Jerry Barton, a go- n.arly IS.DDD. (AsllOc:iated Preas photo.) juncture, quieted Holliday, and :Silly fired at Wyatt as Wyatt men and worse Indians who in- rflla-strong saloonkeeper and sent Clanton away. But later shot Frank McLowery and Mol" fested the southwest. This was constable of nearby Charleston, law and order man. Behind him him. Earp shoved O'Rourke into marshal, and Morgan, town po- Clanton warned Wyatt Earp gan Earp blazed away at Billy. indeed risky business, and more killed men with his fists and not long afterward came his the bowling alley in Allen street, liceman, and the Clantons and that" no man can abuse me like Doc Holliday, in a split second than once he was warned that he sometimes used the gun, but he brothers, Virgil, Morgan, James, stationed Doc Holliday and Vir- McLowerys, who were not. Doc Holliday did and get away survey of the action, lifted Tom probably would find his tomb- never "c-e-o-countedM·M-M·Mex- and Warren Earp, and also one gil Earp, who was town mar- Wyatt regarded Ike Clanton as with it. I'll kill him, and I'll McLowery, unarmed off the stone-meaning he'd be killed- icans " in the notches on his gun- John Holliday. Holliday was a shal, on guard, and then waited a " sort of chief among the out- settle with all you fellows to- ground with a' double blast from instead of finding gold or silyer. handle. William (Kid) Clay- dentist who had given up the . in the street for the mob. laws" and all the Clantons and morrow." his shotgun as McLowery But Schieffelin stubbornly .bourn, a tough cowboy, killed business of filling teeth with All Wyatt Earp had was a McLowerys as cattle thieves. Wyatt Earp considered Ike reached for one of Frank Mc. went ahead. He found silver. casually here and there, but fell gold for that of filling men with double barreled shotgun in the It was natural that bad blood Clanton's explosive 0 r a tor y Lowery's extra guns. Billy Clan- And he founded Tombstone. under the gun of the quicker lead. No deadlier shot, no more crotch of his arm. should develop between such merely drunken chatter, but ton, on the ground from Mol" A mining camp town mush- shooting Buckskin Frank Leslie, merciless killer ever stomped The mob-nearly 500 fanatical contrasting men, but the definite changed his mind the next day gan Earp's bullets, continued roomed over night on his silver a good rider, a good shooter, a the plains and mesas of the west men-rushed up; Earp stopped origins were plural rather than when friends sent him fearful the uneven battle. He drilled discovery, and to him came the good scout, and a good bar- than this slender, blond, and them with a sharp gesture. "We singular. Among them the fact warnings that "Ike Clanton's Virgil Earp through the leg and honor of selecting the town's ten del'. Johnny- Behind· the- gray eyed fighting man from want Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce," that Billy Clanton stole Wyatt on the warpath." The same news Morgan Earp through the shoul- name. He chose Tombstone, this Deuce, so named because he al- Georgia. H 0 II ida y became they snarled. "You can't have Earp's favorite horse; the fact. was carried to Wyatt's brothers, del' just as Virgil finished him macabre name having lingered ways played the deuce on the Wyatt Earp's right hand gun- him; he's my prisoner," thun- that the Clantons and Mel.ow- Virgil and Morgan, and to Doc with a shot in the breast. Doc in his mind from frequent warn- faro layout, shot and killed man. dered Earp. The lynching lead- erys supported Johnny Behan Holliday. Of ominous import Holliday and Morgan Earp ings. Tombstone the town be- Henry Schneider, a mining en- .Wyatt Earp came to Tomb- ers threatened Earp. Then some instead of Wyatt Earp for sherif. also was the information that reo turned their guns on Frank Me- came, and Tombstone's the town gineer, because Schneider would stone at a time when outlaws one shouted, "Go ahead, he's Two events of similar design enforcements in the persons of Lowery a split second after Me- that boasts today that it's too not say hello to him. were robbing the stages on the only bluffing." At this Earp hastened a showdown. In March, Billy Clanton and Frank Me- Lowery creased Holliday's thigh. tough to die. Tolerant of private shooting Benson and Bisbee roads. He raised his shotgun and swept the 1881, between Tombstone and Lowery had come into town. All It was all over in 30 seconds. You'll find it in southeastern scrapes and even feuds, Tomb- promptly offered his services as front ranks. "Come on, then," Benson, three road agents held were armed, Wyatt was told, The casualties: Billy Clanton Arizona, in a lazy setting of pur- stone's citizens whitened with a messenger to the Wells-Fargo he challenged grimly. " Let's see up the Benson stage and killed and all were raging to settle the and Tom and Frank McLowery ple hills, cactus, and mesquite, fury at burglary, street and express. For seven months he you get him. You can kill me, Bud Philpot, the driver, and long standing feud. dead; Virgil and Morgan Earp quite as drab as its surround- all right, but I'll blow the bellies Peter Roerig, a passenger. The stage coach robberies, and mur- rode the Tombstone-Benson Sherif Behan heard the rum- and Doc Holliday wounded. ings. Just 60 years old, it is not out of you in front, and take a Earps and Doc Holliday pursued del' for profit. Punishment was stages, a loaded shotgun on his blings. He rushed over to the The Earps won the battle, but old as conventional towns go, few of you to hell with me." the gunmen, who escaped, only Clantons and McLowerys to dis- at the price of their exile. They but very old, almost patriarchal, This was no bluff. The mob to die of bullets later anyway. arm them. He found them near were acquitted at a preliminary The trio were Jim Crane, Bill as mining camps go. broke. The life of Johnny- the O. K. corral in Fremont hearing, but could not avoid the Much of the original 'I'omb- Behind-the-Deuce was saved. Leonard, and Harry Head. Here street, near Fourth. "Boys, I stigma that four of them, heav- stone still stands, but the dash was the feudal poison in this will have to disarm you to pre- ily armed, had attacked four is gone. Ramshackle wooden • • • case. The Earps insinuated the serve the peace," Behan said. others, only two of whom were buildings that once dazzled Earp cherished great hopes of murderers were Clanton men, Ike Clanton showed that he had armed. Public sentiment reo white under the desert sun now being sherif of the newly cre- and the Clantons retaliated by no guns, and Tom McLowery coiled against them. They were reflect dully the gray of age, and ated Cochise county, a job, with openly charging that Doc Holh- turned out to be as defenseless. not, helped by open charges in many of them, like tottering old various legal emoluments, worth day, Wyatt Earp's right hand, The only ones carrying guns court-only by Ike Clanton's, men, lean gratefully for support $40,000 a year, but the plum participated in the holdup, and were Billy Clanton and Frank it's true-that they had ar- against sturdier neighbors. The went to John H. Behan, a man was the man who actually killed McLowery. They had four. They ranged or actively aided in sev- Tombstone that once had an en- who did not lack courage, but Philpot. refused to disarm. eral bold stage robberies while ergetic population of nearly who knew the political rather As if this were not enough to posing as law and order men. Sherif Behan was still plead- 15,000, against Tucson's 7,000 than the gunshooting end of the intensify the feud, another stage The Earps read the signs. and Phoenix's 1,800, now mus- business. One of his notable was held up in September, 1881, ing with them to surrender their arms when he saw four men They saw thelr reign of power tel'S fewer than 1,000, while acts was his appointment as this one near Bisbee. Again the ending. They prepared to de- Tucson brags of 33,000 and Phoe- deputy of William M. (Billy) Earps and Holliday joined the turn the corner at Fourth street. They were Wyatt, Virgil and part, but for once challenged nix of 50,000. Breakenridge, a fearless law en- pursuit, and helped to arrest the the fates too often. Assassins forcer. Behan's appointment an- two alleged highwaymen, Frank Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday. He ran out to head them off. wounded Virgil and murdered • • • gered Earp. The two became bit- Stilwell and Pete Spence. And Morgan. Wyatt Earp and Holli- "Go no further, men," he said Tombstone has experienced its tel' rivals as servants of law and here was this added poison. Stil- day tarried long enough to set- seven ages of man. By all the After their fight with the Earps. Left to right. in their caskets. Tom and order-one the sherif, the other well and Spence were Clanton- to them stridently. "I want no trouble." tIe Morgan's score by slaying rules of rise and decline of other Frank McLowery and Billy Clanton. (N. H. Rose photo.) deputy marshal. McLowery men. his killer, Frank Stilwell, the western mining communities, it This was at a time when the The three Earps and Holliday stage robber whom they had ar- should now be buried in its own swift, the justice of vigilance knees. For seven months there Clantons-Old Man Clanton and • • • brushed past him. A hush came rested some months before. Boothill graveyard. But Tomb- committees. were no stage coach holdups. his sons, Finn, Ike, and Billy- The arrest infuriated the Clan- over the street as these four In the spring of 1882 Wyatt stone carries on. There was the time a gang of Earp won quick recognition as and Frank and Tom McLowery tons and McLowerys, who men advanced. Storekeepers Earp and Doc Holliday and a It was made by the fortune men robbed a company store in a handy man to have around in were in the full flush of out- warned Morgan Earp, "You backed deep behind their coun- handful of followers rode slowly seekers and adventurers who Bisbee and killed J. C. Tap- case of disturbance, and bust- lawry. The Clantons operated a Earps and Doc Holliday are not tel's. Death was in the air. out of Tombstone, watched by rushed to the hills of Schieffelin, pinier, the assayer. Posses from nesses requiring protection bid ranch on the San Pedro river, a as big as you think you are- The Clantons and McLowerys hundreds of unfriendly eyes. In men who toted guns and knew Tombstone and Bisbee speedily for his special talents. He ac- few miles above Charleston, and we'll get you yet!" Breaken- stood their ground. Now 100 the crowd that saw them off how to use them-the Earps, the rounded up the gang, Frank cepted the offer of a partnership the McLowerys ran another in ridge recalls in his memoirs that feet separated them, now 50, stood Sherif Behan. In his hand Clantons, the McLow~rys, and Heath, Dan Dowd, C. W. (Red) in the Oriental saloon (still SUlphur Spring valley, 25 miles "Virgil Earp told me that the now 25, now 10-- he held two warants charging the types of Doc Holliday, Gen· Sample, Tex Howard, Bill De standing), which at the moment southeast. McLowerys threatened to kill Out came the Earp and Holll- Earp and Holliday with the Stil- tleman John Ringo, Curly' Bill, Laney, and York (Dan) Kelly. was being threatened with vio- Cattle thieves ran wild those every one who had a hand in ar- day guns. "You've been looking well murder. But he never and Johnny-Behind-the-Deuce- A Tombstone jury tried Heath lence by a gang of gunmen. As days, and one group made regu- resting Stilwell and Spence." for a fight and now you can served them. The prospectors piled in from first and found him guilty of his first act in the partnership lar forays into nearby Mexico. everywhere, some simple, some second degree murder. A mob Earp nonchalantly sent word to This group acknowledged alle- shrewd, all bold, but not all bad, promptly seized Heath, hanged the gunmen that" if you're look- giance to John Ringo, a gam- and in their dusty wake followed him to a pole, and announced ing for trouble come on over. I bler, a knight errant to women, the bartender, card sharp, and they'd do the same to the next aim to please." They never and to William Brocius, better madame and girls of the bagnio. jury that returned such a vel" came. known as Curly Bill, who rated Surveyors hastily laid out diet. One can guess the verdict Earp probably never demon. tops in cattle rustling. This was streets, and on them contractors of the subsequent jury that tried strated more majestic nerve the outfit that Walter Noble speedily built rows of plain, low Dowd, Sample, Howard, De than the time that Johnny. Burns in his "Tombstone" de- roofed frame structures from Laney, and Kelly. The five were Behind·the-Deuce wantonly rnur- scribes as one of the most which protruded wooden awn- hanged-the first men to be dered Engineer Schneider. John. strongly entrenched outlaw ings to shade the sidewalks. hanged legally in Tombstone. ny's real name was O'Rourke. kingdoms in the west. The Clan- Allen street became the main Tombstone soon developed He was a wizened runt, big tons and McLowerys in particu- thoroughfare, with rivals in into a hell roaring town, and eared and big nosed. A lynching lar protected the Ringo-Curly Tough Nut and Fremont streets. in this hell roaring town in party started out to make Bill rustling interests, and they Money came easily; it went the win tel' of 1879 arrived amends, and Constable George gave refuge to sundry f\lgitive more easily. A quarter was the Wyatt Earp, native of Mon- McKelvey, who had arrested desperadoes. smallest coin used. Liquor cost mouth, Ill., a fast thinking and O'Rourke, spirited him on a fast There could be no bond be- $1 to $5 a drink. Men lost $100 faster shooting frontiersman. horse into Tombstone just ahead tween the Earps, who ostensibly to $1,000 a sitting at the gam- Earp wore the badge of a dep- of the mob. Earp, as a law of. were law and order men; Wyatt, bling tables. uty United States marshal-a ficer, was called upon to protect deputy marshal; Virgil, town Tombstone a. it appeared in 1880.the year after Wyatt Earp arrived in town. (N. H. Rose pboto.)