9
THE STREETS OF TOMBSTONE
The streets of Tombstone are said to be haunted by several lingering ghosts from its violent past. However, lawlessness was not the only cause of untimely deaths in Tombstone’s bloody history. Two terrible fires scorched the town, the first in June 1881 and a second in May 1882. During these two devastating fires, more than forty people lost their lives in the crowded saloons and brothels when they were suddenly caught in the inferno. Significant areas of the business district burned to the ground and were erased from history in a matter of minutes. The victims of these tragic events are rumored to make themselves known on occasion. Some people have reported seeing apparitions, complete with severe burns on their faces. Others have reported the smell of smoke and burning wood when there is no explainable reason.
The corner of Fifth Street and Allen is the haunt of one of the most often seen ghosts on the streets of Tombstone. Witnesses describe this specter as an older man dressed in a knee-length coat and wearing a black hat. The man limps awkwardly and crosses the street from the Oriental Saloon toward the Crystal Palace Saloon. In some accounts, the man falls to the ground in the middle of the intersection and then just vanishes. Because of the general description and the location, many believe that this is the ghost of Virgil Earp.
After the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the Earps relocated their families to the Cosmopolitan Hotel for protection. On December 28, 1881, around 11:30 p.m., three men who were hiding in an unfinished building across Allen Street ambushed Virgil as he walked from the Oriental Saloon to the hotel. Virgil was hit in the back and left arm by three loads of buckshot from about sixty feet. The Crystal Palace Saloon, which was behind Virgil, was struck by nineteen shots. Three passed through the window, and another passed a foot over the heads of several men who were standing by a faro table. Severely wounded, Virgil staggered into the hotel.
The corner of Fifth Street and Allen, looking east. Photo by the author.
Dr. George E. Goodfellow removed four inches of shattered bone from Virgil’s left arm, leaving his arm permanently crippled, and twenty buckshot from his side. Virgil was also shot through the back above the hip; the bullet penetrated his body and lodged near the hip bone above the groin.
The one problem with the rumored ghost being Virgil Earp is that Virgil died on October 19, 1905, in Goldfield, Nevada. However, there is no shortage of possible suspects, as the intersection of Fifth and Allen is known as the deadliest corner of the Wild West. Over thirty documented killings happened at this intersection. From that list, here are the two most probable suspects.
At this location, Luke Short shot Charlie Storms. Luke Short was a twenty-six-year-old faro dealer. Charlie Storms was a sixty-year-old professional gunfighter and gambler who had only been in town a few days. The cause of their dispute was simply the turn of a card.
The corner of Fifth Street and Allen, looking west. Photo by the author.
On Friday, February 25, 1881, Short was serving as the lookout, seated next to the dealer at a faro game in the Oriental, when he was involved in what became a well-known gunfight. His opponent was Charlie Storms. Bat Masterson, who was in Tombstone at the time, described what happened in a magazine article he wrote in 1907:
Charlie Storms and I were very close friends, as much as Short and I were, and for that reason, I did not care to see him get into what I knew would be a very serious difficulty. Storms did not know Short and, like the bad man in Leadville, had sized him up as an insignificant-looking fellow, whom he could slap in the face without expecting a return. Both were about to pull their pistols when I jumped between them and grabbed Storms, at the same time requesting Luke not to shoot, a request I knew he would respect if it was possible without endangering his own life too much. I had no trouble in getting Storms out of the house, as he knew me to be his friend. When Storms and I reached the street, I advised him to go to his room and take a sleep, for I then learned for the first time that he had been up all night, and had been quarreling with other persons. I was just explaining to Luke that Storms was a very decent sort of man when, lo and behold! There he stood before us, without saying a word, he took hold of Luke’s arm and pulled him off the sidewalk, where he had been standing, at the same time pulling his pistol, a Colt’s cut-off, 45 calibre [sic], single action; but like the Leadvillian, he was too slow, although he succeeded in getting his pistol out. Luke stuck the muzzle of his pistol against Storm’s heart and pulled the trigger. The bullet tore the heart asunder and, as he was falling, Luke shot him again. Storms was dead when he hit the ground.
The shot fired by Short at point-blank range set Charlie’s shirt on fire. Tombstone physician George E. Goodfellow was only a few feet from Storms when he was killed:
In the spring of 1881, I was a few feet distant from a couple of individuals, (Luke Short and Charlie Storms) who were quarreling. They began shooting. The first shot took effect, as was afterward ascertained, in the left breast of one of them, who, after being shot, and while staggering back some 12 feet, cocked and fired his pistol twice, his second shot going into the air, for by that time he was on his back.
Short was arrested by Tombstone city marshal Ben Sippy for the murder of Storms. During the preliminary hearing, Masterson testified that Short acted in self-defense and Short was released.
The second most probable suspect is “Billy the Kid” Claiborne. After the real Billy the Kid was killed, Billy Claiborne insisted everyone call him “Billy the Kid.”
“Buckskin” Frank Leslie was tending bar at the Oriental Saloon on November 14, 1882, when Claiborne, who was very drunk, began using insulting and abusive language. Leslie asked Claiborne to leave, but Claiborne continued his foul and abusive speech. Leslie later told his side of the story to the Tombstone Epitaph:
I was talking with some friends in the Oriental Saloon when Claiborne pushed his way in among us and began using very insulting language. I took him to one side and said, “Billy, don’t interfere, those people are friends among themselves and are not talking about politics at all, and don’t want you about.” He appeared quite put out and used rather bad and certainly very nasty language towards me. I told him there was no use of his fighting with me, that there was no occasion for it, and leaving him I joined my friends. He came back again and began using exceedingly abusive language, when I took him by the collar of his coat and led him away, telling him not to get mad, that it was for his own good, that if he acted in that manner he was liable to get in trouble. He pushed away from me, using very hard language, and as he started away from me, shook a finger at me and said, “That’s all right Leslie, I’ll get even on you,” and went out of the saloon.
Within several minutes, two men told Leslie that there was a man waiting outside to shoot him. When Leslie stepped outside, he saw “a foot of rifle barrel protruding from the end of the fruit stand.” He told Claiborne, “Don’t shoot, I don’t want you to kill me, nor do I want to have to shoot you.” But Claiborne, who was still drunk, raised his rifle and fired, missing Leslie. Leslie immediately returned fire and hit Claiborne in the center of his chest. “I saw him double up and had my pistol cocked and aimed at him again.…I advanced upon him, but did not shoot, when he said, ‘Don’t shoot again, I am killed.’” Claiborne was taken to a doctor by friends, where he died six hours after being shot. His last words were reportedly, “Frank Leslie killed Johnny Ringo, I saw him do it.” He was buried in Tombstone’s Boot Hill Cemetery. Leslie was found to have acted in self-defense and not charged with the death.
The ghosts of Tombstone are not confined to Allen Street either. In 2007, I was doing a paranormal convention in Tombstone at Schieffelin Hall. Later that day, after the presentations were done, one of the attendees, a woman from Phoenix named Carol, told me about an experience she and her friend had several years ago when they first visited Tombstone:
I first came to Tombstone with my friend Janice. After spending the day doing the typical tourist stuff, we went out to go bar hopping. After a few hours it was starting to get late, and the bars in town started closing. We had been at the Crystal Palace having drinks when we decided to walk back to our RV to turn in for the night. As we were walking, we became fascinated by how different the town “feels” at night time. So we decided to wander around and look at several of the places that we had visited during the day. We were walking down Toughnut Street when Janice grabbed my arm. “Somebody is following us,” she whispered. I told her not to worry about it. After all the bars were closing, and it was probably someone else on their way back home. I turned and saw what looked like a man, but it really wasn’t. It was more of a dark shadow that had a human shape. I could see lights through it, yet it appeared to be walking. What the hell was it? I’ll admit that I was startled a little so we turned north onto First Street to see if it would follow us. The “shadow” walked out into the middle of the street, stopped and then just vanished.
When Carol got back home, she did a little research and discovered that the intersection of First and Toughnut was where John Wesley Heath was lynched. She is convinced that what she saw was his apparition.
In the early 1880s, John Wesley Heath was living in Arizona. For a short time, he served as a deputy sheriff in Cochise County, but he soon discovered that the pay was not to his liking. In November 1883, Heath moved to Bisbee with James “Tex” Howard. Along the way, Heath met several of Howard’s friends: Dan “Big Dan” Dowd, Omer W. “Red” Sample and Daniel “York” Kelly. Together, the five men plotted a crime that would eventually become known as the Bisbee Massacre.
In its early years, Bisbee did not have a bank, and it was common knowledge that the $7,000 cash payroll for the Copper Queen Mine was delivered to the Goldwater and Castaneda Mercantile store one or two days in advance of the company’s payday on the tenth of each month. Heath and his four companions planned to rob the payroll after it had arrived at the store.
The group rode to Frank Buckles’s ranch, about ten miles outside Bisbee, where Heath immediately partnered with a local man named Nathan Waite and prepared to open a new dance hall. Heath and Waite opened their dance hall behind the Goldwater and Castaneda Mercantile general store on December 8, 1883. Later that evening, the outlaws rode into Bisbee. Waite would join the other four men while Heath remained at his saloon. The group tied their horses at the end of Main Street near the Copper Queen Mine smelter and calmly sauntered to the Goldwater and Castaneda store. Three of the bandits entered the store while the other two remained outside as lookouts. All of the men wore masks to obscure their identity except for Tex Howard, who chose not to, as it obscured his vision.
The robbers forced the store owner to open the safe at gunpoint. However, the outlaws were dismayed when they quickly discovered that the payroll had not yet arrived. Left with no other options, they looted everything that was in the safe. The robbers took some cash and a watch and then robbed all of the employees and customers in the store.
Meanwhile, several citizens outside recognized that a robbery was in progress and confronted the two cowboy lookouts waiting near the door.
When J.C. Tappenier exited the Bon Ton Saloon next door, they ordered him to go back in. He refused, and the robbers killed him with a single shot to the head. Cochise County deputy sheriff D. Tom Smith was having supper with his wife across the street at the Bisbee House. He ran out into the street, and the robbers ordered him to go back inside. Smith refused and told them he was an officer of the law. One of the bandits reportedly said, “Then you are the one we want!” and immediately shot him. The deputy was killed instantly, and his body fell beneath a freight wagon on the street. Another local man, known only as “Indian Joe,” was wounded in the leg as he frantically tried to escape the shooting. Annie Roberts, who was pregnant, heard the commotion and went to the door of the Bisbee House restaurant to see what was going on. The robbers fired multiple shots in her direction. Roberts was shot, the bullet shattering her spine and mortally wounding her. John A. Nolly, a local freighter, was standing near his wagon when he was shot in the chest. Roberts and Nolly died later that evening.
The robbers exited the store, and they all ran for their horses, firing at anyone they saw along the way. Deputy Sheriff William “Billy” Daniels had just left his saloon when he heard the gunfire. He emptied his revolver at the fleeing outlaws but missed. The whole crime lasted less than five minutes, and with cash secured, the bandits left the town at a leisurely pace, evidently unworried about capture. The robbers rode over Mule Pass and out of the city. East of Bisbee, at a place called Soldier’s Hole, they divided the money and went their separate ways.
A telegraph was sent to Sheriff J.L. Ward in Tombstone and he quickly formed two posses. He led one himself, while the other was under the watchful eye of Deputy Sheriff William Daniels.
When Daniels arrived in Bisbee, he began to question its citizens, including John Heath, who was at his saloon. Heath told Deputy Daniels that he knew some of the men who were involved and volunteered his assistance in helping to find them. The posse departed, with Heath leading the way. However, the lawmen found nothing and soon accused Heath of leading them on a false trail.
The posse continued to search for the outlaws and eventually found all five men. They were all brought back to Tombstone for questioning.
During their interrogation, some of the outlaws began to suggest that John Heath was the mastermind behind the robbery. As a result, the authorities brought Heath in for further questioning. Under pressure, Heath eventually confessed to having prior knowledge of the crime. He was arrested and jailed with the other outlaws.
On February 17, the trial for the five killers began, and two days later, they were all sentenced to be hanged on March 8, 1884.
Heath’s trial began on February 20, and he admitted to being the mastermind of the robbery because the others lacked the intelligence. However, he insisted that the killings were never a part of the plan and that he was not responsible for the murders committed by the other five men. The next day, Heath was convicted of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit robbery and sentenced to life in the Yuma prison.
The citizens of Bisbee were outraged, and a mob of fifty men soon gathered. Led by a man named Mike Shaughnessy, they descended on the Tombstone jail on the morning of February 22. The mob took Heath down Toughnut Street and lynched him from a telegraph pole at the corner of First and Toughnut Streets. In his last moments, he said, “I have faced death too many times to be disturbed when it actually comes.” As the rope began to pull him skyward, he cried out one last request, “Don’t mutilate my body or shoot me full of holes!” Public approval of the lynching could be seen in records of his official cause of death: “We the undersigned, a jury of inquest, find that John Heath came to his death from emphysema of the lungs—a disease common in high altitudes—which might have been caused by strangulation, self-inflicted or otherwise.”
It is hard to say that what people have claimed to have seen is actually the ghost of John Wesley Heath, as there are not enough details to make a definite connection. However, something odd has been happening near this intersection for quite some time. On March 19, 1898, the Arizona Daily Star ran a story about Tombstone titled “A Nice Place for Ghosts”:
Tombstone has again got up some excitement, this time on account of a haunted house, wherein spooks appear to have a gay old time and make as much noise as the ambitious daughter of a next door neighbor learning to play the piano. A few nights ago a miner who was riding horseback past the house heard unusual noises. He thought he heard footsteps behind him, but on looking backward discovered nothing. His horse became frightened at some object, and trembling with fear ran at full speed down the hill and could not be induced to go back.
The Star does not usually take a controlling interest in the capital stock of ghost stories, but if there are such things as ghosts, they couldn’t find a nicer, quieter place to play than at Tombstone.
Tombstone’s local newspaper, the Epitaph, has published several stories over the years about the ghostly happenings that occur around the town. Some are tongue-in-cheek, while others tell of more harrowing stories.
The Tombstone Epitaph, 1880s—that ghost again:
Strange some people can’t even be decent after they are dead, but must go prancing around the country in their night robes disturbing the peace of the community. Before day, yesterday morning, this disconsolate spirit that has been seen on several occasions paid a visit to the vicinity of Second and Bruce, and disturbed the slumbers of some of the compositors of this office; one of them went to the door to get a drink of water and saw “his nibs” waltzing around over the stones just as if he was happy. Whether it was the ghost or the strangeness of the taste of the water, it is not known but the compositor turned around quickly and yelled to his companions and spilled his water all over the floor in the rapidity of his movements. His friends got to the door just in time to see the ghost making rapid strides for his home in the Boneyard close by.
Notice is hereby given to that ghost to keep away from the vicinity mentioned beforehand for the residents are peaceful, hard working people and won’t be bullied by a ghost, and the gentlemen might be made a lead mine of some time, for there are numerous guns in waiting. A word to the wise is sufficient.
The Tombstone Epitaph, July 30, 1881—a perturbed spirit that walks Fremont Street:
As prosaic and matter of fact as most people are, when the subject of the Supernatural is broached, there is a vein of superstition very deep down beneath the surface in almost every heart which will crop out now and then, suppress it as they may. It is the aristocratic thing in almost every old house to have a grey or white Spectre that always appears to give warning of any abnormal event that is about to occur, and of late the more pretentious cities have their nocturnal visitants that are claimed to be of the other ethereal. It hardly comes within the Realms of possibility that so a new place as Tombstone should have developed a good sized ghost that can be seen only during the midnight hours, wandering aimlessly up and down on the north side of Fremont Street, between 6th and 7th. This statement coming to the ears of an Epitaph reporter, he was detailed to interview that gentleman whom it was reported has seen this denizen of the Realms of space and find out the true inwardness of this case. Upon approaching this gentleman, who is a well-known personage in Tombstone, he at first fought shy and made an effort to evade the subject, but upon pressing him for the facts of the mystery, if there were any, upon a solemn pledge of secrecy as to his name and residence, he told the following plain and straightforward story.
It happened in this wise: One evening he had been up to New Boston to see a lady friend and stayed rather late, say until nearly 12 o’clock, when he started for his home in the lower part of the city. All was black darkness and silence, save the occasional howl of a miserable cur in the neighborhood. Wrapped in pleasant meditations until he reached a point between 6th and 7th streets, he was startled by a soft, rustling sound upon his right, at the same moment his frame was penetrated by an unearthly chill, when involuntarily his head was turned to the right where he saw gliding along in close proximity the ghostly figure of a man about his own height clothed entirely in dark grey. It is unnecessary to affirm that his hair erected itself like “the quills upon the fretful porcupine.” In his fright his gaze riveted upon his majesty until in an instant, and as mysterious as it appeared, this semblance of a man disappeared, vanished into Thin Air. There was no other sound other than the faint rustle already described, no sound of footfalls or other audible noise to indicate its presence. When freed from the hateful presence he quickened his pace and made rapid haste to his room, where, feeling the Drowsy God pressing his eyeballs down for sleep the activity of his mind drove away slumber until the first faint dawn to the east. Since then upon two similar occasions, he has seen the same mysterious visitant under precisely the same conditions, preceded by the soft rustling sound [of] an unearthly chill penetrating his body.
Upon being closely questioned he did not vary one iota from the facts as herein narrated and solemnly averred that he upon on each occasion duly in the possession of his scares. [sic] Before this, he had been a laughing skeptic upon the subject of the supernatural, but now he is as serious a believer in the possibility of perturbed souls manifesting themselves upon the scenes of their crimes or violent taking off as he was before a scoffer. He has no Theory as to which one of the aver, who has met a violent death in Tombstone, this silent Walker is, but insist that it is someone of them come back as a warning to evildoers whose acts will not bear an investigation in the light of day.
Another ghost story that takes place on Fremont Street involves the apparition of a woman in a white gown who has been seen near the street’s intersection with Third Street. According to the stories, she is thought to have committed suicide after her child died of yellow fever in 1880. Her ghost has even been said to block traffic and has been reported as far as nine miles out of town.
A walk through the darkened streets of Tombstone can be an enriching experience. The town takes on a different flair that simply isn’t there during the daylight hours. But be aware. You may not be alone.