Bisbee, Arizona
Leaving Douglas, take AZ 80 west and then north into the Mule Mountains, where you’ll find the charming old mining town of Bisbee. More than any other town in Arizona, Bisbee retains its 19th-century frontier ambience. So many of the old buildings have been restored and refurbished that it’s almost like a movie set, its brightly painted storefronts climbing the sides of Tombstone Canyon, Moon Canyon, Miller Hill, and Brewery Gulch—all part of the original townsite laid out in 1880. The terrain is so steep in some places that Bisbee High School has a ground-floor entrance on each of its four levels.
Bisbee hung on as a copper town until the mid-20th century, but when the mines shut down, real estate values plummeted. The housing crash attracted a new wave of residents: artists, craftsmen, and counterculture types seeking camaraderie and a cheap place to live. Bisbee became nationally known as the “Best Historic Small Town in America,” among other accolades, prompting yet another influx, this time of retirees and investors, who took the restoring and refurbishing to a whole new level.
Today, Bisbee is beautiful to look at, and a very cool place to visit. You can spend a pleasant afternoon browsing in the shops and galleries, sampling the saloons in Brewery Gulch, and walking along the many public staircases and pedestrian walkways that were built in the 1930s, as a New Deal project of the Works Progress Administration. A favorite place to stay is the beautifully restored Copper Queen Hotel, which dates back to 1902. The small but quite interesting Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum is just across from the hotel. Serious mining enthusiasts can take a tour of the inactive Queen Mine outside town, where a small train takes visitors 1,500 feet into the underground tunnels.
| Douglas and Bisbee Highlights |
| The Gadsden Hotel1046 G Ave., Douglas, AZ 85607(520) 364-4481thegadsdenhotel.comCopper Queen Hotel11 Howell Ave., Bisbee, AZ 85603(520) 432-2216copperqueen.comBisbee Mining & Historical Museum5 Copper Queen Plaza, Bisbee, AZ 85603(520) 432-7071bisbeemuseum.orgBisbee Queen Mine Tours478 Dart Road, Bisbee, AZ 85603(520) 432-2071queenminetour.com |
Tombstone
Leaving Bisbee, head north on AZ 80. After about 23 miles, you’ll roll up on Tombstone, “The Town Too Tough to Die.” This place is an American original, a rough-and-tumble silver mining camp, founded in 1879, one of the last of the Wild West boomtowns. Tombstone was the stomping ground of Wyatt Earp and his brothers, their pal Doc Holliday, and Doc’s gal, Big Nose Kate, as well as the gang of no-good cattle rustlers that called themselves The Cowboys—Ike and Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers. These were the principals in the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral; a bloody, 30-second shootout in the streets of Tombstone that still reverberates after more than 135 years. That brief portion of Tombstone’s history has been immortalized time and again in movies and on television, and is as much a part of American popular history as Paul Revere’s Ride or Custer’s Last Stand.
The old part of Tombstone is very walkable, and visitors are quickly immersed in its story. Actors in period costumes hang around the downtown area wearing six-shooters, long coats, and dusty boots. In the Crystal Palace Saloon, you’ll be greeted by comely dance-hall girls in bustiers and fishnet stockings. A re-enactment of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is staged daily, on Allen Street; the first show starts at noon. The original town newspaper, The Tombstone Epitaph (“Every Tombstone needs an Epitaph”), is still in operation; you can tour its offices and purchase souvenir editions. The Tombstone Courthouse is now a museum and historical park presenting many fascinating exhibits, including a set of well-used gallows out back of the building. The Bird Cage Theatre, once billed as “the wildest and wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast,” is open for tours, including a nightly ghost tour whose participants seek contact from the wandering spirits of the many unfortunates who departed this world violently during Tombstone’s heyday.
OK Corral, Tombstone, Arizona
Today Tombstone is a caricature of its former self, but in a good way. All that stagecraft provides a window into a complicated historical event (it wasn’t all good guys and bad guys) in the very place where the whole thing happened, and with enough context to make it seem real. That’s a good trick, and if you like that sort of thing, it really is great fun.
“Here Lies Lester Moore…,” Boot Hill Grave Yard, Tombstone, Arizona
On your way out of town, stop by Boot Hill, the Tombstone graveyard from the earliest days of the town. It’s a real graveyard, deserving of dignity and respect, but some of the headstones are pretty wacky, like this one: Here lies George Johnson, hanged by mistake, 1882; He was right, we was wrong, but we strung him up, and now he’s gone. There are many others in a similar vein, more than 250 marked graves in all, all dating between 1878 and 1884. A short distance farther up the highway, atop a hill with a view of the distant Dragoon Mountains, is the Landmark Lookout Lodge, a nice hotel with all the essential amenities.
| Tombstone Highlights | ||
| Crystal Palace Saloon436 E. Allen St., Tombstone, AZ 85638(520) 457-3611crystalpalacesaloon.comGunfight at the O.K. Corralok-corral.com | Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park223 E. Toughnut St., Tombstone, AZ 85638(520) 457-3311Bird Cage Theatre535 E. Allen St., Tombstone, AZ 85638(520) 457-3421tombstonebirdcage.com | Boot Hill Graveyard408 AZ 80, Tombstone, AZ 85638(520) 457-3300Landmark Lookout Lodge781 AZ 80, Tombstone, AZ 85638(520) 457-2223lookoutlodgeaz.com |
St. David and Benson
Leaving Tombstone, continue on AZ 80. After about 16 miles you’ll pass through the small community of St. David, an oasis of green trees along the banks of the San Pedro River. There’s an unusual RV park here, on the grounds of the Holy Trinity Monastery, a Christian retreat founded in 1974 that is now home to a small community of Benedictine monks. Visitors are welcome on the grounds, as well as in the chapel, the library, museum, thrift shop, and bookstore. Most of the guests in the RV park are regulars who stay through the winter and volunteer their labor on the monastery grounds and in the adjacent pecan orchard; they are called the “Holy Hobos.” A 70-foot-tall Celtic cross commemorating the Irish Famine is just visible from the highway. Feel free to pull in if you’d like to take a closer look at it.
Seven miles beyond St. David you’ll reach the town of Benson and the intersection with I-10 that marks the end of this route.
70-foot-tall Celtic cross, Holy Trinity Monastery, St. David, Arizona