The herald., 1897-02-28
THE ARIZONA LINE
Many Tombstone Buildings Being Carted
Off to Pearce
Closing Of the Mlnts to Silver Makes Tomb.
stone verItabIs Monument to
Strangled Industry

TNMBSTONE, Ar1z, Feb. 26.-It looks
as though most of Tombstone is being
removed to the Pearce mining camp,
twenty-five miles distant and just over
the Dragon mountains. House after
house IL being torn down, that is, when
ever 1t happens to be frame building,
and load after load of the lumber is
hauled away that the same buildings
may be reconstructed at Pearce. II
this continues much longer only the SUBJ
stantial structures of plastered adobe
will be left to mark the spot where less
than a score Of years ago the liveliest
mining camp in all the great southwest
reveled In its abundance of shining new
coin, white and yellow.
Was the name Tombstone bestowed
on this beautiful townsite as prophecy.
I wonder, or as jest? It is certainly a
dead enough town just now, and yet it is
the healthiest of places, high, dry and
sunny, and with the best Of mountain
water. 1t has no record of mortality at
all Of late years. AS an old-timer said
to me the other day, refreshingly u1i-
conscious of the bull he was responsible
for, "A man can't die here any more,
to save himself from -" but I won I
finish his sentence. He went on to ex-
plain that in the good old days when the
camp was booming and the purchase by
the government of about 1000, 900 ounces
of silver monthly, under the Bland ace,
made money as plentiful as water, the
only way a man could get himself dead
was to stand in the way of a bullet,
and successes of that character were not
infrequent. There was a killing" then
for every time meal was eaten, which
added much, perhaps, to the palatable-
ness of the grub"
In the balancing up Of things doubt
less the best use that could be made Of
Tombstone right now would be to con-
vert it into a sanitarium for the saving
of life. 1t has, indeed, a delightful cli
mate, and there are plenty of vacant
buildings that at small outlay ard IN
significant rental could soon be rendered
homelike. The water used is conveyed
by pipe from the Huachuca mountains,
about thirty miles to the eastward
What more is needed for natural sani-
tarium to there who have the means
to procure the necessities of life?
Tombstone is an example of what the
exclusion of silver from the mints of The
country, first by the demonetization ac-
of 1873 and afterward by the repeal of
the silver purchasing act, means to one
of the greatest industries of the west
1t has shut up resource that was
worth millions of dollars to the volume
of circulating medium of the country:
it has closed an industry to thousands
and thousands of hardy, stalwart min
ers. The "deadness" of Tombstone to-
day is the result of the complete clos
ing down of the silver mines which here
abound. The town stands en- a mass o [
silver ore, mostly chloride in it's charac-
ter, and very rich In the past it at
tracted the capital of such men as Phil
Armour, N. K. Fairbanks, w ]. Cheney,
E. B. Gage, Lyman j. Gage (for it was
Lyman backing his brother), ex-Gov-
ernor Stafford, Disston of saw fame, Ben
ham of the Baltimore Locomotive
works. Dick Gird, the Schieffelins-Ed
and Al-were made princely opulent by
the discovery of these mines, this honor
belonging to Ed, and no sooner was the
fact known late in 1877 of the rich de-
posits here than hundreds of claims
were located. From 1878 to 1884 as much
as $12,000,00 worth was taken out of the
Contention mine, $40 900, 900 from the
Grand Central, $2,500,000 from the
Toughnut. $2,500.000 from the Emerald,
81 100000 from the Good Enough and
another million in the aggregate from
the Head Center, Tranquility, Empire,
Silver Thread. Rattlesnake, Lucky
Cuss. West Side, State of Maine, Flora
Morrison and Sulphuret. Altogether
$50, ,0000 900 of silver was shipped from
Tombstone in that short period. Today
not a mime is being worked, not mill
in motion; tine several thousand people
who thrived here have sought other Dig
gings-the gold and copper mines of the
country-and the stiffness here is so
suggestive that one cannot fail to asso-
ciate THE name Tombstone with the
80 rnt o. 4 a.
have contained.
notwithstanding, there are few bus
mess men left who have not given up
hope They believe that the country