Adjoining the business district was the populous region of red lights, its street lined with cribs, palatial establishments, saloons of the rougher sort, and dance halls where, to the music of Mexican orchestras, men and women revelled all night in wild saturnalia. In the small hours, the sirens of the resorts drove in cabs and barouches to the Crystal Palace, Oriental, or Alhambra, swarmed in with gusts of tipsy laughter—pompous old mesdames, reckless young beauties in paint and finery, low-cut gowns, and satin slippers—and drank with the men at the bars or bucked the games until morning.
Nightly the Bird Cage Opera House offered “stupendous attractions,” and nightly the famous old honky-tonk was packed to the doors. There was a bar at the front and a horseshoe of curtained upper boxes around the walls. Seated on wooden benches, the audience guzzled whisky and beer and peered through a fog of tobacco smoke at vaudeville performers cutting their capers in the glare of kerosene-lamp footlights. Beautiful painted ladies in scanty costumes sang touching ballads of home and mother on the stage and then hurried to the boxes where, by their voluptuous charms and soft graces, they swelled the receipts of the downstairs bar and received a rake-off on every bottle of beer they induced their admirers to buy. When the performance ended, the benches were moved against the walls to clear the floor, and the crowd reeled in drunken dances until the sun peeped over the Dragoons.
Billy Hutchinson was proprietor of the Bird Cage, succeeded in later years by Joe Bignon. From a yellow, tattered old programme, one gains an idea of the character of entertainment the Bird Cage had to offer.
“First Appearance of Mr. Tommy Rosa, King of Comedians and Laugh Makers,” announces the ancient show bill in impressive capitals. “Mr. Walter Phoenix, America’s Premier Song and Dance Artist. The Campbell Sisters, Seriocomic Stars and Sketch Artists. Professor King in His Wonderful Suspension Wire Act. Mr. James Holly and Miss Lola Cory, America’s Own Specialty Stars. In Addition to Our Own Great Company. Our Petite Star Miss Annie Duncan, the Tombstone Nightingale. Mr. Harry K. Morton, Comedian and End Man, in His Great Specialty, the Dublin Dancing Man. Our Seriocomic Queen, Miss Lottie Hutchinson, in Her Selections of the Latest Gems. Mr. Neal Price, Author and Vocalist, in His Original Budget of Songs of the Day.” A comforting footnote adds, “No Advance in Prices. General Admission Twenty-five Cents. Boxes According to Location.”
The mouldering old playbill, which seems ready to crumble at a touch, gives one a twinge of sadness, and one wonders mournfully what may have become of all these kings and queens and nightingales of other days who sang and kicked up their heels so merrily in the old Bird Cage. Where now are America’s Own Specialty Stars? Who can recall a single bar of the Songs of the Day that the gifted Author and Vocalist sang with such fine effect? Into what particular corner of utter oblivion have faded the Premier Song and Dance Artist and the wonderful Professor of the slack wire?
In a short walk along Allen Street on a pleasant afternoon, one would likely see most of Tombstone’s celebrities. Wyatt Earp, the lion of Tombstone, six-shooters on, keen eyes restlessly on watch. Town Marshal Virgil Earp, dour, silent. Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday laughing together in front of a saloon over some dry witticism of the humorous doctor, as agreeable a fellow as ever looked over the barrel of a gun. Sheriff John Behan bustling importantly. Deputy Sheriff Billy Breakenridge, neatly groomed and smiling. The Clanton and McLowery boys, sworn enemies of the Earps, just back probably from a cattle-stealing raid with Curly Bill. But as these breezy fellows swing past the Earps, they salute pleasantly instead of shooting, and the Earps respond with “Hello, boys.” Which seems surprising. Sombre John Ringo, outlaw with a haunted past, who drinks hard, unlike other bad men, who take their liquor sparingly to keep their trigger fingers steady. Billy Grounds, Zwing Hunt, and Billy Claibourne dropping into the Oriental at “second drink time” for a social glass with Buckskin Frank Leslie, the genial bartender, looking innocuous in a white apron. Frank Stilwell who, it is said, has robbed the stages so often the drivers know him by his voice. Jeff Milton, government immigration officer, tall, dashing, a native of Florida with the manners of a cavalier. Dick Gird, Ed Schieffelin’s old partner. John Slaughter, cattle baron, who is some day to clean up Tombstone, a small man with notably piercing black eyes. E. P. Gage, wealthy mine owner, and former Governor Anson Safford, banker, walking arm in arm. Henry C. Hooker, picturesque proprietor of Sierra Bonita ranch in the Sulphur Springs Valley, at which Augustus Thomas in later years wrote his famous play, Arizona. Or Walter L. Vail of the Empire ranch with his brother, Ed Vail. Or perhaps old Pete Kitchen, known as the Daniel Boone of Arizona, in from the Portrero for a visit.
Tombstone had plenty of money to spend and spent it in these boom times. The saloons equalled the silver mines as sources of quick wealth, and stores of all kinds prospered greatly. Visitors expressed astonishment at the quality and variety of the merchandise sold over the counters. The prosperity of the town was reflected in the habiliments of its citizens. Tombstone was dressy. Men of the wealthier class might have looked at home in a metropolitan club. The women kept abreast of the styles, and the fashion edicts of the Rue de la Paix, as set forth in the town papers, were echoed in the Arizona deserts. Though Allen Street was not Fifth Avenue or State Street, many of the costumes to
