Revisiting The Wild West in Tombstone, Arizona

I passed through Tombstone years ago on my way to Fort Huachuca back in my Army days, but I didn’t get a chance to actually check it out. But if you’re visiting the southern part of Arizona, Tombstone, most famous for the shootout at the OK Corral (or, to be historically accurate, the shootout in a vacant lot on Freemont Street), is well worth the drive (it’s a bit more than an hour south of Tucson) to get there for a bit of Wild West fun.

One of the things you should appreciate, if you hadn’t already while driving around in the desert of the Southwest, is how crazy people must have been to a) travel through these areas before the advent of air conditioned cars, and b) to actually settle down and live in these places. I will have to say, though, that the weather in Tombstone during our visit was actually very mild and not at all uncomfortable, not nearly as hot as in Tucson.

Tombstone was founded on the lure of silver, and the town produced more than its share over the years before the mines went bust. One thing that I had no clue about was that at its peak in the 1800s, Tombstone was said to have been the fastest growing city between St. Louis and San Francisco, with a population at one point of 15,000 to 20,000 people! It was also the seat for Cochise County for a time, and sports a very impressive looking courthouse that has been preserved to this day as a museum.

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While it was booming in the 1800s, Tombstone now has something around 1500 hardy residents (many of whom dress in period costumes) who largely cater to tourists like yours truly. There are quite a few shops selling all kinds of things, from Native American jewelry to cowboy hats, both of which we picked up during our wanderings (hats for both of us, a thumb ring for Jan, and a t-shirt for me). Make sure to catch one of the gunfight shows: there are two in town, from what I could tell, one at/near the OK Corral, and another on the opposite end of town. We saw the latter, which was more of a comedy routine than anything else, but it was very entertaining and well worth sitting in the heat for a bit. There’s also a mine tour that looked fun, but unfortunately the timing didn’t work out for us to go.

We also just happened to visit on a day they were having a parade, which was especially fun for the kids because there were people tossing out candy in a Tombstone version of Mardi Gras. There are at least two restaurants (there might have been more), the Longhorn and Big Nose Kate’s Saloon. We wanted to eat at Kate’s (I wanted to eat there just because of the name!), but they were absolutely packed and we didn’t want to wait for almost an hour, so we headed to the Longhorn, which was able to seat us right away. The food was good but not great, not really any more or less than I expected.

With that, we were ready to head on out. Why were we in a bit of a rush to wrap up our Tombstone experience? Two words: wine tasting. Believe it or not, not far to the west of Tombstone, near the town of Elgin, is a cluster of wineries. When we were researching our trip, this came as a total shock to me: having grown up in Phoenix, the last thing I ever would have expected to find in southern Arizona would have been vineyards and wineries! And yet, there they are.

As I’ve mentioned before, Jan and I aren’t wine connoisseurs by any stretch, but winery hopping is both fun and a great way to see areas that you otherwise might never visit. It can also be a great way to meet people, as we discovered at one point.

The wineries we visited were the Village of Elgin Winery, the Kief-Joshua Vineyards, Callaghan Vineyards, Rancho Rossa Vineyards, and Wilhelm Family Vineyards. A tip if you go wine-tasting along this circuit: buy a wine glass at any of these vineyards, and the others will give you a discount when you present your glass.

We had a very pleasant experience at all of them with the exception of the Callaghan Vineyards. When we arrived, there were maybe half a dozen people there (which isn’t very many for these places), chatting about this and that. Not wanting to interrupt, we stood, wine glasses in hand, in clear view of the folks working the wine counter…neither of whom acknowledged our presence (and I know they saw us, because I made eye contact with one of them) even to say, “Hey, I’ll be with you in just a minute.” After standing there for a good five minutes, turned around and left. There were plenty of other places that wanted our business, and not bothering to welcome new customers is a big pet peeve of mine.

While the other wineries were great, the place we wanted to hit the most was the Wilhelm Family Vineyards. One of their specialties is sweet wines, which are the kind we enjoy the most. And boy, did they have some good ones! The barista there was really nice, and we had a long chat with her in between groups while I let my alcohol level subside. We also had a great talk with folks from a wine tasting tour who’d been following along behind us on the other stops, and we decided that this was really the best way to do this sort of thing. They were in a van and had a dedicated driver who pumped them full of fruit and cheese in between stops, so none of them had to worry about driving and could just enjoy the wine.

Once we were done there, we headed back to Tucson to rest up for the next day trip, this time to Kitt Peak National Observatory, which is one of the work-related research stops for me for a story project I’m working on.

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