Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park

When Cochise County was created in 1881, Tombstone became its seat, and the next year the county built this two-story red-brick courthouse in the Victorian style. Laid out in the shape of a cross, it held the sheriff's office on the ground floor, a courtroom upstairs and a jail. A rear addition followed in 1904. Its National Register of Historic Places nomination calls it the oldest courthouse still standing in Arizona, and it was listed in April 1972.

The building served the county until 1931, when the county seat had moved to Bisbee. The county transferred it to the City of Tombstone in 1942, and the Tombstone Restoration Commission restored the first floor and opened it to the public in 1956. On August 1, 1959, the city handed the courthouse, its contents and the lease on the land to the new Arizona State Parks Board, and it became the first state park in Arizona to open.

Today the rooms are a museum of Tombstone and Cochise County. Exhibits include a period sheriff's office, a lawyer's office and the courtroom, a saloon and gaming room, mining and ranching displays, and drawings and interpretations of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and of Wyatt Earp. Among the collection's oddities are a license to operate a brothel and an invitation to a hanging. In the courtyard a reproduction gallows marks the site where convicted murderers were hanged.

The park also includes the Schieffelin Monument, about two miles northwest of town on Allen Street. Ed Schieffelin, whose 1877 silver claims started Tombstone, died in Oregon in 1897 and asked to be buried near his first camp here. A stone monument 25 feet high, shaped like a prospector's claim marker, stands over the grave. It is open in daylight, with a picnic table and a short trail.

When this page was checked, the park's website warned of construction work and crews on site, so expect some noise or closed areas.