Across The USA by Dodge
Chapter 13
After Tucson I drove down a highway called the Old Spanish Trail to Tombstone which is an amazing town. The town has really cashed in on its past and every building sells souvenirs of the (romanticised) wild west. They still have the old board sidewalks and if it wasn't for the cars parked on the tarred street you'd swear you'd gone through a time warp back to 1880.
The lady who runs the newspaper there (The Tombstone Epitaph) was really nice. She wanted to know all about Australia (are there kangaroos hopping down the streets?) and when she found out I've done a journalism course she all but offered me a job!
Apart from the O.K. Corral, scene of the famous gunfight between the Earps/Doc Holliday and the Clantons/McLaurys, the cemetery is the star attraction and I took a number of photos of the graves which are fascinating. I also bought a book which gives all the history on the place. It's funny (in a morbid fashion) looking at row after row of graves where you see one guy shot by so-and-so and nearby is so-and-so who was shot by somebody else and that guy was hanged etc. etc.
My favourite grave is:
Here Lies Lester Moore
4 Slugs From a 44
No Les, No More
Poor Mr. Moore was a Wells Fargo agent who was killed because of a dispute over a package.
Chapter 14
Home