We have friends in Tucson and at another park here in Benson that we originally planned to spend most of the month visiting, but that routine has been severely modified. We clean ourselves, our clothes, shoes, and the like and get directly into the car and drive to their rv. They are doing the same and we are limiting outside exposure at the grocery store or gas station. Every rv'er we've seen has been very careful to maintain social distancing, so we feel as secure here as possible. In fact, we've signed up to stay through April, or until some sort of abatement is seen on the COVID-19 front. The rv park will remain open, and we are pretty much in the middle of the desert, so there you go.
We partnered with our Benson friends to safari into Tucson for supplies. Several of us have the dreaded "underlying conditions", so the healthy members of the group venture into stores with community lists and grab what they can. The stock on grocery store shelves seems to be adequate, but some supplies (read toilet paper) sell out as fast as they are stocked. We got up at five one morning to get to Costco at seven and discovered a line that wouldn't even be allowed into the store until nine. We left. This is ridiculous!
While almost every "nonessential" store is closed, we still can get a haircut and a cup of coffee. The definition of "essential" seems to be somewhat loosely drawn, so we've been known to stop at a restaurant for lunch, take it out, and eat in the car while watching people carrying televisions out of Best Buy. Perhaps they are limiting access, but we didn't see it.
There are till some interesting things to see in southern Arizona. One day we drove south about 25 miles to Tombstone and visited the old courthouse. We were able to see the exhibits without a great deal of trouble because we were two of only three people in the building! Tombstone was one of the last boomtowns of the American frontier with the discovery of somewhere between 40 and 85 million dollars of silver in the mid 1880's. Best known for the Gunfight at the OK Corral, Tombstone had a bowling alley, four churches, a school, two banks, three newspapers and an ice cream parlor. There were also 110 saloons and 14 gambling halls! When silver mines penetrated the water table, expensive and specialized pumps were installed and mining continued until a fire destroyed the Grand Central pumping station in 1886, and it was unprofitable to rebuild the costly pumps. Today, tourism keeps the town and it's 1,500 residents alive. Well, maybe not now....
The courthouse was built when Tombstone became the county seat of Cochise County in 1881. After the Lucky Cuss mine hit it big, lots were laid out for a new town and sold for $5 apiece. In 1880, the original Tombstone Mine (so named because the prospector who laid claim to it was trying to keep it a secret, and told anyone who asked where he had found his silver-ore rocks, said "the only rock you'll find out here is your Tombstone"), had been sold to the Tombstone Mining and Milling Company which owned the nearby Tough Nut Mine and was working a vein of silver ore worth $22,000 a ton. Life was good, the Grand Hotel was opened with oil paintings and carpets imported from Brussels. Kelly's Wine House featured 26 varieties of wine and a beer imported from Colorado named "Coors". Cowboys and drifters were smuggling cattle, whiskey, and cigars across the mexican border, and while half the mines were rich, the other half went bust, putting a strain on the population of the city. The famous Gunfight was the result of a personal, family, and political feud between the wealthy, northern, democratic businessmen and the largely republican Confederate sympathizers that made up the "blue collar" folks. The Earps were hired to put a stop to the lawlessness, but soon ran afoul of the McLaury and Clanton families. On October 26, 1881, a gunfight broke out on a vacant lot owned by photographer C.S. Fly, near the OK Corral, and resulted in the deaths of two McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton. After Morgan Earp was killed while playing billiards and Virgil Earp was seriously wounded, the Earp family left Tombstone, and a full-time sheriff was elected. John Slaughter served two terms until the evil rum began to take a toll and he began to associate with outlaws.
The mines around Tombstone boomed, but the most productive were south of town. The Goodenough, Toughnut, Contention, Grand Central, Lucky Cuss, Emerald and Silver Thread mines all needed water to process ore, leading to a pipeline being built from the San Pedro River nine miles away to supplied the mines. The pipeline continues to be the only source of water for the town of Tombstone. That water is used to irrigate what Guinness has named the world's larges rose bush. Planted on the corner of 4th and Toughnut in 1885, the Lady Banksia rose now coveres more than 8,000 sq ft and has a 12 foot circumference trunk!
The Tombstone Museum has many items from the towns colorful past, including this piano used to entertain the guests at the Grand Hotel.
In the backyard of the courthouse, a replica of the gallows bears testament to the swift justice that was common in the day.
The coroner's report on the death of John Heith is interesting....
We also managed a day trip to the old mining town of Bisbee, Arizona. This copper, gold, and silver mining town was established in 1880 and named for one of the financial backers of the adjacent Copper Queen Mine, Judge DeWitt Bisbee. In 1929, the county seat was moved from Tombstone to Bisbee, where it remains. Copper mining was the biggest thing in Bisbee until the '70's, when the mines became unprofitable. An influx of artists in the 1990's have led to the renovation and restoration of many old houses. Coffee shops, art studios, and live theatre productions have brought Bisbee property values to the highest in southeastern Arizona cities.
There weren't a lot of people on the streets of Bisbee, and the shops were all shuttered.
But the town is protected by night time spirits!
On our return to Benson, we caught a great late afternoon shot of the Dragoon Mountains!
So here we sit, broken-hearted.....
But we have friends and resources here, and the wifi network is pretty good! Unfortunately, the wind blows all the time (today it is gusting to 35!), but we'll manage, and thank our lucky stars that we're here! So many others are not so lucky.
Say a prayer for our Doctors, Nurses, and First-Responders, OK?
