Tombstone Epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.) 1887-Current
Historic newspapers carry the language, views and graphic reporting of their time, including racist content. They are shown to teen and adult profiles.
1,655 issues from 1887 to 1922, published in Tombstone, Arizona, digitised for Chronicling America.
The Tombstone Epitaph took its first breath of life in 1880 as a Republican paper under the operation of John P. Clum, Thomas Sorin, and later that year, Charles Reppy. Clum chose the name for the paper because he felt that every tombstone had to have an epitaph. According to William H. Lyon, in his book, Those Old Yellow Dog Days, Frontier Journalism in Arizona 1859-1912, Clum’s friends “thought the name alone would kill the paper,” yet “Clum took pride in his morbid creation” and felt that the Tombstone Epitaph would serve as a journal which represented and built up mining, Tombstone’s founding industry.
In 1881, as postmaster and mayor of Tombstone, as well as the editor and publisher of the Epitaph, Clum ventured farther into politics with a self-proclaimed goal of ridding the town of corruption while creating peace and wealth for its citizens. One of his first orders of business was addressing what he called “the county ring,” a group of crooked officials and local ranchers who Clum claimed were allied with outlaw elements. This alleged alliance served to fracture the town of Tombstone, resulting in the formation of two opposing camps. On the one side were Clum, the Epitaph, local Republicans, mining interests, and the Earp brothers. On the other were the rival Weekly Nugget, local Democrats, ranchers, and several so-called “cowboys”–men who were not exactly law-abiding citizens. The infamous October 1881 shootout between the Earps, Doc Holliday, and the Clanton and…
- Genres
- News
- Published in
- Tombstone, Arizona, United States
- Language
- English
- Collection
- Chronicling America
- Licence or status
- None stated by the archive
- Rights
- The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety.
- Credit
- Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities
- Who can read it
- Teens profiles and older (placed by Invisible Network from what the archive says; archives give no ratings)
- Archive
- Library of Congress