Tombstone, Arizona

If you like alliteration, repeat after me . . . . Tombstone tacky-trinket tourist-trap town. Speaking of tacky, the Tombstone Hotel promises it guests will ’rest in peace’. You get the idea. This town is about as authentic as a Victorian double-wide. But if you are accompanied by children, they may enjoy the OK corral gunfight reenactments - possibly, maybe, perhaps. If you are looking for an authentic Western town, keep on pedaling down the road to Bisbee.

Despite our jabbing humor, we still recommend Tombstone. It is a clean, safe, family-oriented small town and very pedestrian-friendly.

This small town was once a county seat and its economy was heavily dependent on silver mining. Now tourism is essential to Tombstone’s vitality. In the summer of 1877 prospector Ed Schieffelin was working the hills east of the San Pedro River in the southeast portion of the Arizona Territory, when he came across a vein of very rich silver ore in a high plateau called Goose Flats. When Schieffelin filed his mining claim he named it "The Tombstone", after a warning given him by a passing soldier. While telling the soldier about his rock collecting experiences, the soldier told him that the only rock he was likely to collect among the waterless hills and warring Apaches of the area would be his own tombstone.