The Town Too Tough To Die

  Well, I guess I will take a little break from blogging about travels on Indian Reservations. I was getting a little burned out on it. I will return to it another time.
  Right now, I want to write about one of Arizona's most well known tourist attractions. The town of Tombstone is one of the most famous towns of Wild West lore in the world, if not the most famous.
  Everyone knows about the Earp Brothers;  Wyatt, Virgil, Warren and Morgan and Doc Holliday, who followed Wyatt Earp around everywhere he went. The Clanton and McLawry Brothers, who fought the Earps and Doc Holliday in the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral, are also well known  names that are associated with the legend and lore of Tombstone. Today, Tombstone's economic mainstay is tourism and its rich Wild West history. It is one of the most famous towns in the world.
  In the late 1870s, Ed Schieffelin, who once worked as an Army Scout,  was prospecting in the area that later became western Cochise County. He spent quite a bit of time in this area, even though the Chiricahua Apaches  had posed a big danger to anyone who dared venture into this area. After taking a short break from his prospecting work, he spent some time at Fort Huachuca to rest.  He told several friends what he had been doing and one of the friends, after hearing about Schieffelin's plans, said to him "Better take your coffin with you, you will find your tombstone there and nothing else." One of the soldiers said "The only rock you will find will be your
tombstone!"   Schieffelin ignored everbody's warning and headed back out into the high desert of southeastern Arizona Territory to continue looking for mineral riches. His first discovery came in the late summer of 1877 and he quickly filed a claim on his discovery and named the mine the Lucky Cuss. Shortly thereafter, a hastily built canvas and matchstick town called Watervale developed near the Lucky Cuss Mine, but it was really more of a mining camp than a town and was in a poor location . Almost immediately, plans were made to build a permanent town on a flat area nearby called Goose Flats. After a townsite company was formed, lots were sold for $5 each and they were immediately snatched up by people who wanted to partake in the mining wealth.While the permanent town was taking shape, two more silver veins were discovered and the subsequent mines that evolved were named the Tombstone and the Tough Nut. The first mine's name was a direct reference to what the two friends at Fort Huachuca had told Ed Schieffelin two years earlier and the second mine's name was in reference to the fact that someone had told  Schieffelin "You are a tough nut to crack!" The permanent town of Tombstone was born in March of 1879 and this is the town that is now famous the world over.

Ganado

  Ganado is a town on the Navajo Indian Reservation that has about 1,500 people. It is one of the most historic towns on the reservation. It got started in 1871 as a trading post that was established by Charles Crary. Within a year, a competing trading post opened for business and the tiny settlement took the name Pueblo Colorado, after Pueblo Colorado Wash, which is a dry river
 that runs just outside of town. Not surprisingly, mail hardly ever got to this town because it was constantly being sent to Pueblo, Colorado.
This situation existed for five years until the name was changed to Ganado, in honor of Ganado Mucho, the western leader of the Navajo Tribe and one of the signers of the Navajo Peace Treaty of 1868. "Ganado Mucho" is Spanish for "Many Cattle." His Navajo name was Totsohonii Hastiin, which means "Man of the Big Water Clan." This name change alleviated the mail delivery problem to the tiny community. The name change was brought about by Lorenzo Hubbell, who purchased Charles Crary's trading post in 1876 and this enterprise soon became the focal point of the fledgling community. Today it is still in operation and is part of 
Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service.
The park includes the still active trading post and Lorenzo Hubbell's home, which is open for guided tours. Hubbell opened quite a few trading posts, many of them on the Navajo Reservation, and became an important political figure in Arizona history. He ran for United States Senate in 1914, but lost. 
  In 1880, when an act of Congress enlarged the Navajo Indian Reservation, Hubbell successfully lobbied to have his land around the Ganado Trading Post excluded from the reservation, based on his previous status as a settler on the land. To this day, the 160 acres of land that make up the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, is a small "island" of land that is not part of the
reservation, but I am sure this "island" was larger at one time, back in Lorenzo Hubbell's day.
He wound up receiving official title to the land.