Welcome to Tombstone!
We certainly hope that you enjoy your stay and have great fun exploring our historic western town.
Tombstone was one of the last frontier boom towns in the American Old West, founded in 1879 by Ed Schieffelin. From 1877 to 1890, the town’s mines produced $85 million in silver bullion; the largest silver producing district in Arizona.
Ed Schieffelin was a scout for the U.S Army headquartered at Camp Huachuca. Schieffelin often searched known Indian country looking for valuable ore samples. At the Santa Rita mines, three superintendents had been already been killed by Indians. As the account goes, fellow scouts mocked him and told him, “The only rock you will find out there will be your own tombstone.”
After several months he found pieces of silver ore in a dry wash on a high plateau called Goose Flats. He found the source, it was fifty feet long and twelve inches wide and he aptly named his claim, Tombstone.
We hope that you have a great time exploring Tombstone and all it has to offer. Please stop by the front desk and let us know if we may assist you in anyway during your stay.