In today's blog we'll take you on a short tour of Tombstone's Epitaph newspaper, that's been around since 1880!! The newspaper reported on the famous "Shootout at the O.K. Corral" on Oct. 26, 1881. The building that the newspaper was printed in is also now a museum. We'll also tell you about John Clum, the founder of the newspaper. ABOUT THE PAPER - The Tombstone Epitaph is a Tombstone, Arizona-based monthly publication that serves as a window in the history and culture of the Old West. Founded in January 1880, The Epitaph is the oldest continually published newspaper in Arizona.
TODAY'S PAPER - The Epitaph has been a leading voice documenting the rich history of the American West. Today, The Tombstone Epitaph National Edition brings you monthly stories of outlaws and lawmen, soldiers and Indians, ranchers and townspeople...of inventions, intrigues, frontier cookery, Western humor, and Western travel. A fabulous gift for the Old West enthusiast and a souvenir of Tombstone that lasts all year. 
WHAT IS AN INTERTYPE MACHINE? - We saw an Intertype machine in the museum! - The Intertype machine incorporates a keyboard, a magazine that contains continuously reused type matrices, a casting mechanism, and a distribution system for returning used matrices to the magazine.
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| Blocked for stamping |
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| An aged Wyatt Ear (L) and John Clum (R) in 1900 |
John Clum was an Easterner who had come West in the 1870s, looking for opportunities - like so many others. Experience as a meteorologist, Apache agent, lawyer, and newspaperman prepared him for the biggest challenge yet: Tombstone, Arizona Territory, where he arrived in January 1880.
Within five months, on May 1, 1880, Clum had started a newspaper in the silver boom town. "No Tombstone is complete without its epitaph," he proclaimed in the initial issue, giving the publication its distinctive name which lasts to this day.
Tombstone was torn politically, socially, and economically. Clum and The Epitaph were Republican, representing business and town interests. The newspaperman was elected mayor in 1881; he also served as postmaster and head of the local vigilance committee. Source: Tombstone Epitath
Since 1880, when The Tombstone Epitaph ® first reported on Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral ®,
FOR INFO: www.tombstoneepitaph.com
NEXT: THE COURTHOUSE AND A SARSAPARILLA
