A good time traveler dresses appropriately for the local norms. But I could not have brought myself to wear this! I dressed ranchhand style, as seen below.
That's me in the cowboy hat, dressed fairly appropriately for one of the most famous boom towns of the era. This is Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, not the one in Tucson where they took the man I saw strung up. (Boot Hill, a play on the idea of "dying with his boots on," was a fairly common name for cemeteries in the Old West.) The "residents" here include Billy Claybourne, Billy Clanton, Frank & Tom McLaury, someone called Stinging Lizard, and...
...good old Lester Moore. Moore was a Wells Fargo agent in the border town of Naco, Arizona. He was shot to death for delivering a package that was damaged in transit. Ah, those were the days, huh?
Educational opportunities in those days weren't what they are now. Here's one of the first public schools in Arizona. I'd be wary of a classroom where the concept of a right angle is not fully understood.
I'm pretty sure these guys were getting ready to rob a bank. Would they have found something better to do had they had a better education? Hard to say.
These buildings were in a place that was already a ghost town by 1888. Perhaps the fact that the gun shop was next door to the funeral parlor provides a hint as to why the town didn't last.
If you do go visiting the 19th century, try not to get sick or injured - and if you do, don't rely on the local medical facilities. The doctors, surgeons and apothecaries aren't going to have what you need.
Yeah. Arizona Territory. It's an interesting place to visit. But I wouldn't want to live there!
Karen
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