AMERICAN HAUNTINGS DINNER & SPIRITS
EVENING WITH WYATT EARP
EVENING WITH WYATT EARP
AND THE SPIRITS OF TOMBSTONE
AMERICAN ODDITIES MUSEUM
MINERAL SPRINGS HOTEL | ALTON, ILLINOIS
$46 PER PERSON
NEXT AVAILABLE DATE: JULY 27, 2024
CLICK HERE FOR RESERVATIONS!
Join author Troy Taylor for another night of our “An Evening with…” series of events! This eerie evening will include a catered dinner, served in a private ballroom at the hotel. After dinner, Troy Taylor will be presenting “Wyatt Earp and the Spirits of Tombstone,” a look at the true story of lawman Wyatt Earp, the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and the lingering spirits of Tombstone, Arizona, a “town too tough to die.”
Take a trip back in time to the Old West of the late 1800’s and discover the true story of Wyatt Earp — lawman and lawbreaker — along with his brothers, his friends like Doc Holliday, and the violent events surrounding the “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and the war with the Cowboys that left one Earp dead and another injured for life. But this isn’t just a night of gunfights and outlaws! We’ll delve into the eerie haunted places filled with spirits that linger from Tombstone’s glory days — from the O.K. Corral to the Bird Cage Theater, and beyond!
It’s going to be a special night of history and hauntings that you don’t want to miss!
ABOUT THE NIGHT:
Join us at the Mineral Springs in Alton, Illinois for another great event!
- Doors open at 6:00 PM / Dinner starts at 7:00 PM
- Events held at the Mineral Springs Hotel Located at 301 East Broadway in Alton, Illinois
- Limited number of guests for each event
- Private Event in the American Oddities Museum, which will open at 6:00 PM for browsing by guests before dinner
- American Hauntings Bookstore located in the Museum so books will be available for purchase and can be autographed by Troy Taylor
WYATT EARP AND THE
SPIRITS OF TOMBSTONE
PRESENTED BY TROY TAYLOR
During the 1880s,the southwestern Arizona town of Tombstone gained infamy as one of the wildest silver boomtowns of the Old West. During this period, the eyes of all Americans were focused on the events that took place here, from the first silver strike to the bloody gunfights in the town’s dusty streets. The death toll in Tombstone reached such epic proportions in 1882 that President Chester A. Arthur threatened to declare martial law in the city. It was a rough and dangerous place and it certainly lived up to its reputation as one of the wildest towns in the West.
Today, it lives up to it’s reputation as one of the most haunted.
Tombstone got its start on April Fool’s Day 1877. On that afternoon, a prospector named Ed Schiefflin rode into Fort Huachuca in the San Pedro Valley and announced that he intended to look for silver in the Apache country. The soldiers scoffed at his plans and did all they could to dissuade him from such a dangerous endeavor. All that he would find, they told him, would be his tombstone. This warning would end up providing a fitting name for the future town.
Schiefflin spent the entire next summer avoiding the Apache and seeking ore. By October, he was out of supplies, his clothing was in tatters, and he had nothing left. Just as he was about to give up, he discovered a vein of pure silver. As the town grew up around the strike, he called it “Tombstone” after the warning he’d received about how his journey into the mountains would lead to death.
Soon, other miners and prospectors began flocking to the area and Tombstone began to boom. The prospectors attracted the suppliers, the saloonkeepers, the gamblers, and the prostitutes. It wasn’t long before Tombstone became known as the place to find just about any vice known to man. Saloons such as the Oriental and the Crystal Palace operated 24 hours a day. Many came for the silver, the sin, and the vice but many never left — Tombstone’s Boot Hill Cemetery was an unforgiving place.
If there is one name closely connected to the bloody history of Tombstone, it is that of Wyatt Earp, one of the most famous lawmen of the American West. Wyatt was at different times a professional gambler, teamster, buffalo hunter, saloon keeper, brothel owners, miner, boxing referee, and lawman. He spent his early years drifting out of trouble — and jail — but became a lawman in 1874 when he landed in Wichita, Kansas. He later followed his brother, James, to Dodge City, where he became friends with Bat Masterson and serves as assistant city marshal. In the winter of 1878, he went to Texas to track down an outlaw, and he met John "Doc" Holliday, whom Earp credited with saving his life. They became lifelong friends.
Wyatt left Dodge City in 1879 and moved with brothers James, Morgan, and Virgil to Tombstone, where a silver boom was underway. The Earps held carious law enforcement positions and this caused them to clash with an informal group of outlaws known as the "Cowboys,” as well as with rustlers and lawbreakers like Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, Ike Clanton, and Billy Clanton who threatened to kill the Earps on several occasions.
The conflict escalated, culminating in the shootout at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881, where the Earps and Doc Holliday killed three Cowboys. During the next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was assassinated. Wyatt, along with Doc Holliday and several friends formed a federal posse that went after the men responsible. It became known as the “Bloody Vendetta” but even through all the gunfights that followed, Wyatt was never wounded, unlike his brothers Virgil and Morgan or his friend Doc Holliday, which only added to his mystique after his death.
The violence and death that occurred in Tombstone during the latter part of the 1800s left an indelible mark on the city in both history and hauntings. Tombstone is now home to many haunted places and is a place of ghostly legend, unequaled by almost any other small town in America. Join us for this special evening and find out for yourself what spirits still linger in the place called “The Town Too Tough to Die!”