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Tombstone owed its creation to the discovery of
silver. The mines sat in the richest
productive silver district in Arizona.
The population of Tombstone grew from 100 to around 14,000 in less than seven
years.
Tombstone had four churches, a
school, two banks, three newspapers, and an ice-cream parlor, which sat amidst
110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, and numerous dance halls and brothels.
The town is best known as the site of the “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.” At about 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 26, 1881,
the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Virgil and James along with Wyatt’s pal Doc Holiday,
representing the law, shot it out with an outlaw gang known as “The Cowboys.” Three of the outlaws were killed. During
the next five months, the gang struck back. Virgil Earp was ambushed and
maimed, and another of the Earp brothers, Morgan, was murdered. Wyatt, Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and
others formed a posse that killed three more
Cowboys whom they thought responsible.
After the shootout in Tombstone, and
after leaving Arizona, Wyatt Earp was often the target of negative newspaper
stories that disparaged his reputation.
Some regarded him as little better than a murderer. This all changed with a heroic biography
published in 1931, Wyatt Earp: Frontier
Marshal by Stuart N. Lake. The book became a bestseller and created Wyatt
Earp’s reputation as a fearless lawman. Since then, films, television shows,
and works of fiction further added to the fame of Wyatt Earp.
Two
months after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, on December 26, 1881, the
Birdcage Theatre opened in Tombstone. The theater was owned by William Hutchinson.
Hutchison originally intended to present respectable family shows but found
that he could make more money by catering to a rougher crowd. The walls of the
Bird Cage were riddled with gunshot holes from the frequent shootouts. The theater also did extra duty as a saloon
and brothel.
Performing under the stage name “Fatima”, Fahreda Mazar Spyropoulos,
better known to history as “Little Egypt” got her start at the Bird
Cage. Spyropoulos popularized the
form of dancing, which came to be referred to as the
"Hoochee-Coochee", or the "shimmy and shake.” We now call this belly dancing. There is a larger-than-life sized painting in
the Bird Cage, which Spyropoulos
donated, entitled "Fatima". It bears six patched bullet holes; one
can be seen above the belly button and there is a knife gash in the canvas
below the knee.
Arizona Legends and Lore
