Eloy, AZ to Tombstone, AZ to Las Cruces, NM

I left Eloy this morning bright and early and headed east (more like southeast) on I-10 through Tucson and on toward New Mexico.  The little town of Benson is on I-10 and about 20 miles south of there is the famous town of Tombstone, Arizona, famous in a thousand oaters and best known for the shoot-out at the OK corral.  Actually, it is a pretty interesting place.  Gold and silver were discovered near there in 1877 by a young man named Ed Schieffelin.  When he had gone prospecting in the wastelands of southeast Arizona, he had been told that the only thing he'd find there would be his tombstone.  So, after he found silver and gold and laid out his claim, he named the town that sprung up overnight "Tombstone."  Mining was only active in the area for about 10 years, up until around 1887, when the mines were flooded out by groundwater and the miners moved north to Phoenix to chase the latest mother lodes.

Tombstone, of course, is famous for two things...Boothill Cemetery and the shoot-out at the OK corral.  Boothill is open to the public, and some 250 graves, most from 1879 to 1882.  1881 seems to have been a particularly busy year.  The grave sites are maintained by local volunteers, and many of the headstones (actually made of wood, not stone) are pretty interesting.

Here is a view of the surrounding area from Boothill:

And here are a couple epitaphs that I thought were particularly interesting:

And here are the graves to the slow-shooters at the OK Corral:

The town of Tombstone, of course, has been preserved and "enhanced" in all its tourist-grabbing glory, so here are a few shots of the local sights:

This is Allen Street:

This is the building that housed the local newspaper, the Tombstone Epitaph.  According to the information inside, the publisher, one John Phillip Clum, noted that every tombstone needed an epitaph:

The newspaper was published continuously from 1881 to 1974 and since then is published as a monthly historical journal.

Tombstone became the county seat of the newly-formed Cochise County in 1881 and they immediately built a new courthouse:

In 1928 the county seat was moved to Benson, and Tombstone began a long decline that was only halted with the discovery of Tourism.  The courthouse is now a museum and is pretty interesting with a lot of artifacts and documentation of the early years of the town.

About two blocks away is the site of the OK Corral, complete with re-enactments every hour on the hour starting at noon each day.  There is a museum, a movie about the history of the town, and some artifacts from the time of the shoot-out:

This sets the stage for the museum:

This is (allegedly) how the corral would have looked in 1881:

And, of course, here is the actual spot where the confrontation took place between Doc Holiday, Wyatt Earp and two of his brothers on one side and the Clantons and McLaureys on the other:

Anyway, it was actually pretty interesting.

On the way between Eloy and Tucson, I passed by Pacacho Peak, which I thought was striking:

From Tombstone to Las Cruces, NM was just 80 miles an hour along I-10 with not much to report on.  I'll be leaving in the morning for Alamagordo, White Sands, and Roswell, NM.

Miles today:  390
Total:  6,301