Boot Hill Cemetery, Tombstone. AZ
I would have to say my love of history and historically-influential books started
when I was just a boy. My Dad had a huge library of National
Geographic magazines and Time-Life books. I would sit for hours and read the
articles and study the pictures of those old books. One day dad brought in a
Time-Life book on the “Old West.” As I looked through the book there was one
story that got my attention. That story was about a man they called Wyatt Earp.
He intrigued me in such a way that I had to know everything about him and how
he lived his life.
I started reading about towns as
Dodge City and Tombstone. I would sit for hours looking at everything about
Tombstone. I studied pictures and articles till I knew this town like the back
of my hand. I wanted so badly to go there. I watched movies and television shows
about Tombstone, but it wasn’t the same as being there. Oh how I longed and
hungered to go to Tombstone; I wanted to walk the streets and live the life of
this western town. As I grew older I still wanted to visit Tombstone, Arizona,
and so I did. When I pulled into town I couldn’t wait to get out of the car and
walk around. Soon I found myself walking down wooden sidewalks and looking
through the glass windows of the same little shops that were there in 1881. The
story you’re about to read is how I see history.
My story begins as I walked down
3rd Street. and turned east on Allen Street. Something seemed to
stop me in my tracks. As I cleared my mind of everything from the modern world
we live in, what I began to see is what life was like in 1881. I no longer saw
cars or people on cell phones. What I saw were folks with horses, stage coaches
and just people going about their lives in 1881. I started walking down Allen
Street, and I could hear the sounds of music coming from the saloons like the
Birdcage Theater and Big Nose Kate’s Saloon and brothel house. As I kept
walking, I soon ran into a tall 6’4” slender man dressed in black who looked like
Wyatt Earp. Along with him were his brothers Virgil and Morgan and of course
Doc Holliday. I watched them walk toward the O.K. Corral; so I followed them.
As I watched them, they stopped to talk to five cowboys that were already
waiting there. Next thing I saw was the well- known gunfight that we call today
‘The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.”
Here’s what I saw: As the Earp
brothers stopped at the entrance of the corral, Wyatt asked Ike and
Billy Clanton, Billy Claiborne, Tom and Frank McLaury to lay their guns down and told them they were under arrest.
The men did not comply with Wyatt’s order to lay down their guns. There was a
dead silence for about fifteen seconds - and then gunfire was heard throughout
the town. Thirty seconds later three men, Tom and Frank McLaury along
with Billy Clanton lay dead.
After the gun fight, the Earps
and Holliday walked away and faded from my sight.
As I walked away from the
corral, I found myself in front of the Birdcage Theater.
I walked inside and smelled the
history of this place; it was worn and outdated just “my kind of place.” Later
on I walked back on out to Allen Street, and the feeling of being in the 1800’s
was fading from me as I felt something tugging at my arm. My wife was pulling
at me to go, but just before I turned on to 3rd Street, I took one
last look down Allen Street and I heard the faint sounds of laughter and
chatter of the town folks going about their day. Then they disappeared. When
the wind is just right, you can still smell the faint scent of gunpowder that
filled the air that deadly October afternoon in 1881.
