A Crossroads Resource

Unit VII: What, Then, Is This American? ca. 1865 - 1900

Question/Problem 4: What was the West like for miners, cattlemen, and homesteader?

Miners' Reading #3
Another of Arizona's picturesque gold towns was Tombstone, in the southeast corner of the present state. That name was originated by Ed Schieffelin, a soldier stationed at a nearby army post, Fort Huachuca. According to the story, when Schieffelin set o out from the fort on a prospecting trip into the Apache-infested back country, he was told by a fellow soldier, 'Instead of a mine, you'll find a tombstone.' Schieffelin kept the warning in mind, and when he happened on a promising outcrop of rock and staked out a claim, he called it Tombstone.

Later, in 1878, he, his brother Al, an assayer named Gird and several others returned and filed a number of additional claims, to which they gave such names as Lucky Cuss, Tough-Nut, Goodenough and East Side. Some development work was done, but the yield was so meager that most of the original group gave up in disgust. On leaving they suggested that Tombstone be rechristened Graveyard because, they said, it was the spot where they had 'buried their hopes.' Those who remained were themselves on the point t of leaving when Ed Schieffelin struck a ledge so rich as to set off a concerted rush into the district. By the end of 1879 Tombstone had forty houses, several hundred tents, and a population of one thousand; two years later that number had increased sevenfold.

Tombstone remained a large producer of gold and silver for more than ten years. But in the early 1880s, a decline set in--largely because the amount of water flowing into the mine shafts made it unprofitable to operate below the 500-foot level--and by 18 90 its population had shrunk to less than two thousand. However, its mines continued to be worked intermittently for many years longer. During the first sixty years they added an estimated eighty million dollars to the world's supply of gold and silver.

From Jay Monaghan, ed., American West (New York: Bonanza Books, 1963), p. 155.

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