OK Corral

After our tour of Boot Hill we drove downtown, parked the truck and walked down the old restored main street of Tombstone, circa 1882.  They have done a very good job of recreating the period with many of the buildings seeming to be of that vintage.  When you walk inside the stores they are selling all sorts of touristy type of stuff which isn't exactly my thing and we have seen it all before.

It all looked realistic at least based on my experience which is limited to watching old westerns.  John Wayne or Kurt Russell could have walked around any corner in full western garb.







We were in Deadwood, SD a number of years ago which has been kept famous all these years as the result of another famous shooting.  Wild Bill Hickok met his famous end while playing cards in a saloon.  If I had a choice I would do Deadwood over Tombstone.  Deadwood is a little more commercial and upscale, probably due to the plethora of Casinos, which I can do without, and the fact that Deadwood is also in the middle of the Black Hills.  This is a tourist attraction of its own so there is just more activity for the town to play off of.  Deadwood can however be very busy which can be a bit frustrating.  Tombstone is basically a small town in the middle of nowhere, sorry SE Arizona, trying its best to play off of its famous history.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, its just the two are on a different scale.
We bought tickets to a reenactment to the famous Shootout at the OK Corral which was actually quite entertaining.

The set for the play.
 

 The actor above played Virgil Earp and from a distance looked very much like professional actor, Sam Elliot.

 Here is Doc Holiday on the left and Wyatt in the centre with Virgil.
Before the play started we were told that crowd participation was required so when the Earps and Doc came on stage they received cheers and of course when the Clantons and McLaurys appeared they received a chorus of boos.
The actors played to the crowd which only encouraged more of the same.
At the end the good guys were the ones left standing to a cheering crowd.

After the show we took a walk down the street peeking into various shops till we came to the original office of The Tombstone Epitaph.  The town newspaper of the day.  They had some interesting displays of the printing equipment of the time and some storyboards detailing some of the history of Tombstone and its founders and town builders.  Its interesting how Lori's and my interests vary.  I could have spent an hour or more looking over the historic artifacts and reading the history of the town and its principals.  Lori, not so much.  We did get a copy of some newspaper articles of the day detailing the activities at the OK Corral.  Perhaps more on that in another post.
By this time we were getting pretty hungry and our journey down the street soon took us to the Crystal Palace.   Back in the day this was a Saloon, complete with gambling, drinking, food and girls with, shall we say,  various talents.   The gambling is gone but the drinking, food and girls are still there, although the talents of the young ladies are now more related to waitressing.   We had a great meal but it was getting late and Charli had been in her kennel for 5 hours and we still had an hours drive to get back so visiting Bisbee would have to wait for another day.    
Later.