At Home In Chandler

Located approximately 3 hours or 180 miles south of Chandler is a town that is “Too Tough To Die” - Tombstone. Already a historic town, but made into a hugely popular tourist attraction when the movie (bearing the same name) hit the big screen back in 1993.

Your first stop is the Boothill Cemetery – originally known as City Cemetery. Dating back to the 1880s, Boothill graveyard is open to the public. For a small donation, you can walk amongst the graves of Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury and Billy Clanton (see photo below) – all of whom died in the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. While there are over 300 people buried at Boothill, there’s only a little over 200 that are documented. There’s also a story about the Ghost of Boothill that you may find interesting. Click here to read about this paranormal visitor.

As you travel south bound, you’ll reach the City of Tombstone – one of the west’s first mining camps. Today it is a popular Arizona tourist destination filled with hotels, restaurants, shows and shops. During our excursion to Tombstone, we stopped by the Longhorn Restaurant for lunch. Nice sized servings, good prices, wonderful lunch specials and a very nice server. We’d recommend it.

Down near the end of the street sits The Birdcage Theater. The New York Times called it, "the wildest, roughest, wickedest honky tonk between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast." In addition to a saloon, it was also host to the world’s longest poker game - lasting 8 years, 5 months and 3 days. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson were frequent visitors, as well.

While our group opted not to attend any of the shows, we did take the tour at The Birdcage Theater where we learned that the show, Ghost Hunters, had recently visited to tape an upcoming episode. I also picked up a flier for their night time historic ghost tour. Available to adults only Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, I’m thinking another trip might be in our future. The Birdcage Theater has been called “Ground Zero for the Paranormal” by the History Channel and the “Epicenter of the Paranormal” by the Travel Channel. I don’t know about you, but this definitely peaked my interest.

Speaking of paranormal, while walking through the downstairs area of The Birdcage and taking pictures of just about everything – my camera suddenly shut off. Without warning, just off. I didn’t think much of it at first, figuring the battery had died (and who hasn’t had that happen before?). While speaking with the Gift Shop attendant, she mentioned that it actually happens quite a bit. Hmmm ….? The ghost of Josephine Marcus, Wyatt Earp’s love and eventually his wife of 42 years, doesn’t like to have photos taken of her bedroom. The place where she and Wyatt began their love affair is apparently off-limits and she doesn’t like to have photos taken.

I bet you’re wondering what happened to my camera after we left The Bird Cage? Well, I could tell you that it turned back on and continued to take pictures or I could tell you that the battery actually did die. But, what would be the fun of that?

I’ll just leave it to your imagination.

More Links:

About Wyatt Earp

About Wyatt's First Wife Mattie Blaylock

About Josephine Marcus

More About Josephine Marcus

About Doc Holliday

More Boothill & Tombstone Photos