Tombstone is a historic city in Cochise County, Arizona. It was founded in 1877 by prospector Ed Schieffelin, who had been warned by a friend that, in his search for silver in the desert, he would only find his tombstone (meeting his death). However, he struck silver, and Tombstone rapidly grew in size as a boomtown on a mesa above the Goodenough Mine. Within two years of its founding, Tombstone had a bowling alley, four churches, an ice house, a school, two banks, three newspapers, an ice cream parlor, 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, and numerous dance halls and brothels. However, the town's population was heavily polarized due to social and political differences. The mining capitalists and townspeople were largely Northerners and Republicans, and the ladies and gentlemen frequented the Schieffelin Hall opera house; many of the ranchers, rustlers, and criminals (including the powerful Cochise County Cowboys gang) were Southerners and Democrats. As the town was located just 30 miles from the Mexican border, the Cowboys often rustled Mexican cattle from ranches in Sonora and sold them in Tombstone. From 1879 to 1882, the Earp brothers Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan and Wyatt's friend and associate Doc Holliday went to war with Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo's Cowboys, resulting in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. In 1886, a fire destroyed the Grand Central hoist and the pumping plant, and it was unprofitable to rebuild the costly pumps, leading to the city nearly becoming a ghost town. It remained the Cochise County seat until 1929, and the population fell to 646 in 1910. However, its population recovered to 1,380 by 2010.
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