Tourism keeps alive The Town Too Tough to Die.

(Tombstone, Ariz.) Many Arizonans think of Tombstone as too touristy. They wouldn’t be caught dead here. But plenty of life still clings to this collection of one and two-story structures spread out on a little grid of wide streets in southern Arizona.

And why not? It’s got a killer name; that alone draws curiosity seekers. And for a recession-era destination, it’s great: there’s no admission fee to enter the town. Families enjoying a stay-cation don’t mind driving a couple of hours to get here from Phoenix or Tucson.

A parade on Allen Street circa 1881, on the same main drag as shown above.
(Photo: Kansas State Historical Society/W.B. Shillingberg)

Tombstone has had a turbulent past. There’s plenty of historical lore for anyone who is interested; all of it started with the discovery of silver in 1877.

The town was supposed to die in 1881, when the gunfight at the O.K. Corral exposed the dangerous feuds between the roving “cowboy” gangs from the south, and the immigrants and investors from the north.

Character players in 2009 look tough enough for the Tombstone of 130 years ago.

The town was again supposed to die in 1882, after fires pretty much destroyed the place.

Again, the town was supposed to die in 1885, when the mines had been emptied of silver and flooded with water. That helped deflate the population from more than 10,000 in 1882 to only 700 people in 1900.

The town sells not just stage coach rides, but bonnets, too.

It didn’t take long for locals to realize that tourism would help Tombstone stay alive. Buildings that were burned were rebuilt. The notorious gunfight at the O.K. Corral is still endlessly dissected; daily reenactments have been held for visitors’ pleasure for decades, at least since the annual “Helldorado Days” festival, held since 1929.

These reenactments employ varying numbers of actors, who find work with competing repertory companies. Barkers drum up business for stagecoach and mine tours. They hand out coupons, alert customers of coming “gun-fights,” and promise cold beers and sarsaparillas inside the saloons.

Barkers know how to lure in customers.

Of the 1,700 or so year-round residents, some of the rest are service professionals, or they work for the city or mom-and-pop establishments. There are no national chains here.

This past January, former First Lady Laura Bush announced Tombstone had been designated a “Preserve America Community.” Tourists don’t seem to mind that the town isn’t as authentically preserved as it could be, and that stucco and tile have been mixed in with the wooden storefronts.

Richard, 85, said keeping up his long acting career beats being in a rest home.

During the day, saloons, restaurants and shops are swarming; Tombstone’s official web site claims 400,000 tourists come each year. After sundown, the locals take over the establishments. It creates an unusual community.

A few months ago, Leah, a local server at the Six Gun City Restaurant, suffered a heart attack during her shift. She isn’t yet 30, but was in dire straits when no ambulance was available. An actor’s wife later said Tombstone officials had sold it to the nearby city of Bisbee. (Leah, she said, was airlifted to Tucson and received a pacemaker.)

Leah prepped for the Saturday night crowd at the Six Gun City Restaurant.

Daniel Raphael lives in Tucson and moonlights in Tombstone on weekends. He sized up Tombstone politics as “crazy.” He pointed out two blocks of the main drag, Allen Street, where the pavement was deliberately strewn with grit and sawdust.

“Some folks like having ‘authentic’ dirt streets,” he noted. “But bikers complain because it stops them from parking their hogs in front of the saloons.”

Reenactment player Daniel Raphael said competition among troupes is contentious.

As a consequence, he explained, “That means less business. So the mayor wants to paint the streets a dirt color.”

Anita Turner of the Tombstone Chamber of Commerce claims that tourism is up in 2009—there are about 500 visitors per month more than the average of the past two years. Her analysis explaining the positive trend?

“More advertising,” she said, “and several of the cable channels ran Tombstone again.”

One of the world's famous cemetaries: Tombstone's Boothill.

Tombstone’s official web site.

Jain Lemos is an established photography and publishing consultant.

There's a reason he's called a fancy dancer.

1 – The latest powwow guide.
Powwow is really a tradition of tribes of the Great Plains. I’m a member of a California tribe, and us California types go more for Big Times than double-eagle-feathered war bonnets, breastplates, jingles and fancy dance. Somehow all that has become pan-Indian.

I blame the Bureau of Indian Affairs for that. They attempted to bust up tribes by scattering them all over the place, thus leading to the phrase “No matter where you go, you’ll find a beer can, an Elvis sighting and a Navajo.” No matter: today everybody wants to go hang out at a powwow.

2 – Pendleton blankets.
Once a genuine trade item, these blankets have now become haute stuff in Native popular culture. Smartly-dressed Native executives tote around Pendleton briefcases. Graduations, weddings, and other events are always highlighted with these colorful blankets—even bar mitzahs are Pendleton-worthy for those folks who married into Jewry, and there are some!

Occasionally, the Pendleton doubles as a seat cover for…

3 – A pickup truck or SUV.
When you’re living 23 miles down a rutted track from the nearest paved one-and-a-half lane road, you need something that can take a beating! And pickup trucks are always the big sellers in border town dealerships. Throw in a bunch of kids, a couple rez dogs, a “Proud to be Native” bumper sticker and you’re set. And while we’re at it…

4 – Rez dogs.
Everybody’s favorite feral pups are immortalized in Cupeno author Gordon Johnson’s evocative book of essays “Rez Dogs Eat Beans.”

5 – Gripes about tribal councils.
Yep, just like out here in mainstream America, the tribal citizen’s favorite pastime is kvetching about what Tribal Council is up to these days. Whether you’re bitching about elected officials in Window Rock, Washington or Walla Walla, we’re all the same inside — “Vote the bastards out!” Until the next council is elected with the promise of change across the rez, that is.

Of course, the main difference between a tribal council and a city council is that you’re not related to half of the Flagstaff City Council like you are to your friendly tribal council.

And now, the flip side –

Installing solar systems for 400 of 18,000 traditional homes without power on the Navajo Reservation. (Photo: Arizona Capitol Times.)

Top Five Big Issues Facing Tribes Today:

1 – Access to telecommunications.
You can’t do any effective Net business if you don’t have access to broadband to conduct business and upload effective Web sites–much less to telephone service. Arizona touts its AZ211 service as being a conduit to state and local services. But many people in remote reservation communities lack even basic phone service. We’ve heard tales of people having to hitchhike 10 or 20 miles into town just to reach a pay phone or a tribal or state office phone from which to phone the 211 service. And finding AZ211 on the Internet? Fuggedaboutit.

2 – Energy and other infrastructure.
The Rural Electrification Administration, a New Deal-era government agency whose mission was to wire the entire nation for electric service, somehow managed to miss wiring large segments of rural reservations, particularly in Arizona. Now tribes are trying to play catch-up to get all their residents electric service. Some are looking to the sky and sun for alternative energy sources, others are relying on the Indian Health Service or HUD for services like water and sewer, electric service and housing. Tribal housing authorities are working hard to house tribal families with, in many cases, only limited budgets.

3 – Health care.
IHS, an agency under the Public Health Service, has the principal responsibility for fulfilling treaty obligations to the majority of the nation’s 4 million American Indians and Alaska Natives who are enrolled in or otherwise associated with tribes. However, IHS has been chronically underfunded to the tune of about 50 percent of its actual need, and a congressional bill that would reauthorize the fix for at least part of the funding problem, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, has been stalled in Congress for nearly a decade.

In the meantime, the overall life expectancy for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) trails the nation by more than 10 years. Also, the AIAN population suffers from chronic diseases like diabetes at frightening numbers, which is partially due to the lack of preventive care.

4 – Law enforcement in reservation communities.
The Major Crimes Act, passed in the 19th century to prevent tribes from dealing in their traditional way with acts like murder, gave prosecutorial authority to the federal government for any felony committed on tribal lands, which are held in trust by the government for tribes. However, the U.S. Department of Justice has long shortchanged the agents, prosecutors and other justice system officials who must investigate and prosecute murder, armed robbery, drug dealing and other serious offenses committee by and against Indians.

Because some U.S. Attorneys set a lower limit on drug seizures they would prosecute, drug dealers soon learned to stash just a bit less than that limit when running drugs through tribal lands. A law passed in the 1950s, P.L. 280, also mandates that six states (Alaska, California, Minnesota except Red Lake reservation, Nebraska, Oregon except Warm Springs reservation, and Wisconsin), assume criminal jurisdiction over tribal communities—but without any extra revenues. Soon, reservations in these states became lawless havens. Although the law was formally repudiated by President Nixon, it’s still on the books.

5 – Understanding of how tribal governments work.
It would seem obvious that people who live with tribes as their neighbors would know how that tribe works, right? Wrong. For example, most people where I am in Arizona don’t even know how many tribes are here, much less how their governments work. Nor do they understand how tribal governments interact with city, county, state and federal jurisdictions. It’s especially sad when elected officials don’t understand that tribal governments have a solid legal basis for existence.

Only one state, Maine, has enacted legislation requiring tribal government structure to be taught in civics classes, along with tribal history, culture and current issues. Other states have executive orders in place or agreements through their state school systems, but only Maine has a state law.

Debra Utacia Krol, an enrolled member of the Xolon (or Jolon) Salinan Tribe of central California, is a freelance journalist based in Arizona.

+ Fancy dancer photo from about.com. +