Month: December 2013

[caption id="attachment_498" align="alignleft" width="929"]An exterior shot of a 1949 Airstream at The Shady Dell in Bisbee, Arizona. It is an example of one of nine trailers guests are able to choose from to rent. Photographed by Jennifer Luria[/caption]They’re a piece of Americana, making their debut in the 1930s, the streamline design of vintage travel trailers holds a special place in southern Arizona.

At the Shady Dell, a B&B comprising vintage trailers, the 1951 Mansion, a Spartan classic, is furnished with a leopard rug and an antique radio playing old classics.

“I think we are the only kitschy, ‘50s – almost time capsule – like, no one’s been in there since the time they were built,” says Jennifer Luria, owner of The Shady Dell.

The B&B, in Bisbee, Ariz., is home to nine fully restored trailers – ranging from a 1949 Airstream to a 1957 El Rey, which visitors can book for the night. The Shady Dell had been a campground for weary travelers on the legendary Highway 80, which stretched from Savannah, Ga. to San Diego, Calif., and most closely approximates the route of the historic Lincoln Highway, the first road across America.

[caption id="attachment_495" align="alignleft" width="1459"]Street vendor Lupita Alvarado straightens some wares on her table near the tourist district in Nogales, Sonora, in September 2013. Alvarado, who moved to Nogales from her home state of Oaxaca five years ago, laments the significant decrease in foot traffic in the area. © Steve Choice[/caption]Walking around the roughly five square blocks that make up the tourist district of Nogales, Sonora, one gets the feeling the town is dead.

Shops and pharmacies that did a brisk business just a few years back now have troubling amounts of elbow room for day-trippers who make the trip south.

Though Nogales has never had the panache of more famous tourist districts in the United States like Old Town San Diego or Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, it’s traditionally managed to attract a significant number of visitors. That is, until recently.

People on the U.S. side of the border are still spooked by the spate of street violence that rocked the city in 2009 and 2010.

Though the city of 220,000 had 83 murders in 2011 – a decrease of 60 percent from the year before – locals will quickly point out that no tourists were caught up in any violence. Everyone from police officials to local politicians to guys quietly drinking a Tecate in bars like the Salon Regis say the same thing – the violence has ended, and the city’s back to normal.

Draped evening gowns with full bustles of fabric, frills and ribbons; busts spilling out over the tight corsets of saloon girls; men in bowler hats brandishing revolvers and rifles. Tombstone in the 1880s must have been a beautiful sight.

Well, except for the mud and horse manure and gnarly ruffians tumbling into town from the mines or the trail, seeking drink and other diversions, not caring much for fashion.

But take a stroll in town today and you’re still offered small glimpses of the sartorial past, especially during festivals like Helldorado. I’m sorry to see, though, that Tombstone, once known as the place to truly live out a Western fantasy, has been losing its dress-up audience as the generation that kept the tradition alive moves. It is the few faithful fashionistas remaining in the town and nearby areas who maintain the local practice of dressing up in period fashion — with some surprising help from Europeans obsessed with the Old West.

It took eight long years, but Tombstone finally blasted its way onto True West Magazine’s Top Ten True Western Towns for 2014. Tombstone comes in at No. 9, while Dodge City, Kansas, takes the top spot.

Bob Boze Bell, the executive editor of the monthly magazine, confirmed Tombstone’s ranking on the list, which is compiled each year through voting by the magazine’s staff as well as contributors from all over the world. The 2014 list will be featured in the February issue of the magazine, which has a circulation of 45,000 and bills itself as a major chronicler of the history of the American frontier.

Stuart Rosebrook, Towns editor at True West, said Tombstone has “an excellent committee of volunteers who host superior annual events in honor of Tombstone’s history and work hard to promote travel and tourism to Tombstone and Cochise County.”

Bell said that when he visited Tombstone businesses in March, he was especially impressed by the energy and attention to detail he witnessed at Doc Holliday’s Gunfight Palace, at 521 E. Allen St.

“True West is the word of the Old West. It’s an honor to be recognized by them. And many people have worked hard to gain this recognition,” said Stacy Foster, the show director at Doc Holliday’s. The business stages shows daily for spectators under the theme that contrary to legend and Hollywood, most Old West gunfights were brawls that broke out impulsively in saloons and brothels and ended quickly, if bloodily.