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The Streets of Tombstone in 1925 & 1929
"Other Angles of the Shootout Near the OK Corral"
(Refresh this page often)
All of the following images are from The Lost Streets of Tombstone Newsreels DVD
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1925.....The Ok Corral Inquest took place on the first floor of the Courthouse. The Epitaph, Courthouse and the two adobe buildings east of the Courthouse were torn down in the early 1940's " to recover the heavy timbers and lumber."
1929....South side of Fremont Street between Third & Fourth Streets. The wooden structure in the rear is in the approx. location where the original Harwood House once stood. To the left is the fenced in Fremont St. entrance to the OK Corral.
1929.....Past the second white post, in the center of the photograph, was the approx. location of C.S. Fly's Boardinghouse. Notice the man carrying the dummy. In the newsreel, the man stumbles in the water ditch, just like Morgan Earp did during the Shootout "Near" the OK Corral. The camera that captured these images was positioned in front of the old courthouse.
Questions for fellow Tomb fanatics.....
What does the pole next to the water ditch tell us? Was the water ditch there on October 26, 1881?
Send your opinions to Streets of Tombstone
1929....As part of the re-enactment, the injured are carried past the OK Corral entrance and the Papago Cash Store
The OK Corral fence is seen in many old Tombstone photographs
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Tombstone Epitaph, Thursday, December 20, 1934
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"Papago Prince Lives Again As His Palace Yields to Blows of Hammer"
(Previously posted on The Old West History Net)
Last week in Tombstone, the palace of the Papago Prince was dismantled. All that remains of it is a deep hole that was a cellar, partially filled with twisted and distorted pieces of machinery. Madame Today stood looking ruefully into the pit, Monsieur Yesterday passed by. "Do you remember the days when you traded here?" she asked. "Here" he answered, shaking his old head. "Ah, no; there was no store here in my day." Which shows how the mind of age forgets.
For, since the very early eighties, the Papago Store has stood beside the City Hall within the famous O.K. Corral, next to the Fly Photograph gallery, until last week it was torn down.
The Papago Store and the Papago Prince are familiar terms to all who grew to manhood and womanhood in Tombstone; for the children on their way to school found countless interesting things in the dim recess of the little sheet-iron building, lighted only by the light that found its way through the doors at either end, and they loved and respected the handsome, courteous man who waited on them. His name was Frank B. Austin, but they called him the Papago Prince.
Frank B. Austin built the Papago. He stocked it with a thousand and one things required by the citizens of the booming mining camp. The floor space was crowded neatly: from the rafters on large hooks hung cans of lard or axle grease, pails and miners buckets and lamps; it was not until last week that those children who wondered where he kept his unfalling stock of groceries and grains learned that below the floor was a room as large as the one they visited so often.
What story of a prince is complete without a princess?
With the little business established, the Papago Prince cast an eye about for a princess. In San Francisco he found her. Beautiful, talented, highly educated, Sarah E. Austin came to Tombstone as a bride. Her husband's business flourished. She became the first worthy matron of the Venus chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. She stood loyally by her husband in his worthy efforts to pass on to their two sons, Frank B. Jr. and Hoemer his life principles of right living and respect for law and order.
Probably the most exciting event that ever happened near the "palace" of the prince was the Earp-Clanton battle. Did some of the bullets that missed their mark of warm human flesh plough through the sheet-iron walls of the little building? Who knows today?
In recent years, C.L. Cummings and his widow, Mrs. Margaret Cummings, have owned the Papago Store. One relic of interest found therein was the Papago Grain Book wherein the Prince kept his records of grain sold. Records, now almost merely smudged pencil marks, tell that during December, 1885, some of the customers were Chas. Hammond, Frank Plats, the Comet Saloon, Mr. Kinsley, B.S. Coffman, R.S. Mansfield, MacNeil & Company, John Slaughter, Chas. Tribolet, J.P. Rafferty, J.A. Rokold, A. Ashman, J. Coyle, Jos. Hoefler, Mr. Packard, A.T. Jones, D. Stewart, H. Wisdom, R. Crouch, O.L. Bashford and others. Are these now mere names or do their spirit eyes look back at their old friends, still living, as they read?
The little book shows that these customers paid $2.50 for a bale of grass hay, $3.00 for a bale of Alfalfa, $26.60 for ten sacks of spuds, $18.17 for five sacks of onions. Last week a coal oil can was found, marked; per gallon, 80 cents.
The sheet-iron walls that once enfolded the palace of the Prince now house an automobile, a modern device of which the vivid imagination of the Prince never dreamed. Yes, it could not have been otherwise than that the trading Papago Indians who visited here very frequently appealed to the imagination of the merchant Prince and influenced his naming of his store.
Fifty years ago today, children were laying dirty Christmas pennies in the hand of the Papago price in return for peppermint sticks.
Today, the Prince, the children and, last of all, the store itself, are things of yesterday.
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The late Carl Chafin wrote his notes on index cards. This is what he wrote many years ago about the Papago Store:
"Harry Stewart was told by George Chambers that in 1928 when moving the Papago House, several boxes of Fly glass plates were found and where offered to him (Chambers). However he did not respond for several days. Pete Acuna lives there today. He thinks the house was moved in the thirties."
Mr. Acuna was right!
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1929....In this photo we see a boarded up Papago and the front of City Hall. The Post Office and the Nugget Newspaper stood where City Hall stands today.
The Papago and City Hall buildings were built after the Shootout "Near"the OK Corral
1925....... First known photograph of the printing press in the Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper building on Fremont Street. The back door of the Epitaph can be seen behind the printing press. Take note of a stove in front of and to the right of the press.
1925...The Bird Cage Theatre
To purchase the Lost Streets of Tombstone Newsreels DVD, click Shootout "Near" the OK Corral
