Tombstone began as a booming silver-mining camp in the late 1870s and quickly became one of the quintessential Wild West towns, today surviving as a preserved historic city and tourism-driven “Town Too Tough to Die.” Its legacy now rests on a mix of authentic 19th‑century history, especially the O.K. Corral gunfight, and a modern economy built around heritage tourism, reenactments, and historic preservation.[ok-corral 4] Origins and boom years •\tProspector Ed Schieffelin discovered rich silver