A black and white photo postcard of the Cochise County Courthouse in Tombstone, Arizona. The view is from the side. The front caption at the bottom left reads: “Court House”. The postcard is unused, and the publisher is unknown. Glenn Ranch Collection.

In 1881, Cochise County was born in a vote and Tombstone became the county seat building a red brick courthouse. Fifty years later in 1931, the county seat was transferred to Bisbee. The older courthouse was open to the public from 1953 onwards as a state historic park. - In 1879, Tombstone was founded by Ed Schieffelin who came from a prosperous family in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. He moved out west to work as a scout for the US Army and later was on the lookout for potential mining prospect. The area he was searching was considered barren and he was told that the only rock he would find would be his tombstone, hence the name given to the boom town when Schieffelin found silver. People flooded into town to try to make their fortunes. The silver mines were productive until they struck a tremendous amount of ground water and high-volume pumps were installed that could remove four to seven million gallons of water in twenty-four hours. It wasn’t enough and Tombstone’s silver mines were shut down on January 11, 1911 and the Tombstone Mining Company when bankrupt on August 9th. The claims were purchased by Phelps Dodge for $500,000 and the mines later reopened not for silver but manganese for World War One. Manganese mining shut down on April 1st, 1918. Over its lifespan, the Tombstone mines produced one thousand tons of silver along with smaller amounts of gold and copper. After the collapse of mining in Tombstone, the town easily could have become a ghost town. Local cattle ranching and later tourism was enough to keep it alive. Every year, almost half a million visitors come to learn and relive the old west.

1981.194.17