Category: All Stories

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.

When you think of Tombstone history you probably think of people like Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday. You probably don’t think of Blonde Mary, Big Minnie or Madam Mustache. But you should.

Women like these were part of the social foundation of Tombstone in the late 1800s. They were business owners and working girls. But their trade wasn’t a glamorous one. It wasn’t silver mining or cowboying. It was prostitution.

Prostitution was an integral part of the building and even funding of Tombstone in its early days. In 1881, Mayor John Clum expanded prostitution, allowing it to exist in residential areas and not just in the red light district, according to a1994 book by Anne Seagraves, “Soiled Doves.” The town catered to miners and cowboys, rowdy men looking for fun. Seagraves writes that Tombstone’s “brothels were among the finest.”

Tombstone joyously celebrates its riotous history like the gunfight at the OK Corral or Helldorado Days. But it’s not so easy though to get Tombstone to come to a consensus on its history of prostitution.

[caption id="attachment_486" align="alignleft" width="1600"]Rusty Atherton (left), guitarist Buck Rhodes (center) and fiddler Jimmy Craighead[/caption]You see Taylor Swift standing on a stage before a thousand adoring fans, singing an upbeat song about never, ever getting back together with an ex-boyfriend. Here at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon on Allen Street, Rusty Atherton sits on a stool in front of the crowded restaurant singing in a deep baritone voice about how all his exes live in Texas.

The two singers could not be more different from one another, but they’re connected by one significant similarity.

They’re both country. As in country-western music.

In Old West towns like Tombstone, classic country music is a staple and you won’t be hearing much Taylor Swift. Around the country, though, the genre is evolving and in all its forms, is “alive and well,” according to Marsha Short, the executive director of the Western Music Association. She adds, “There is a huge surge of popular western music right now, with the new groups coming up.”