How A Town Got A Queer Name

San Francisco Bulletin.

How a Town Got a Queer Name.

What's in a name? A good deal; we are told, and how came Tombstone, Arizona, to have such a name?  It was not borrowed or stolen from any other place on the globe, nor ever suggested by novel or gazetteer. The story goes and it is true, that two young men, brothers, when about to start from Tucson on a prospecting tour into the Dragoon mountains, Sonoria, or somewhere else, were advised to give up the undertaking for if they persisted, they would find neither mine or fortunes, but their " tombstones" instead. The boys bravely bade good-bye to their friends though emphatically warned that they would never come back following " that blind trial," already referred to, came to this plain and made their camp. On looking about they saw a ledge of ore cropping out several feet, all marked and rich with the precious metals. " We have found our tombstones," they exclaimed, and no other name would do to designate the camp. The town has adopted the name, which if not poetic or classical, is certainly original. A valuable tombstone, too, it must be confessed, for these Schieffelin Brothers, last week, sold their half-interest in the mine and mill for $100,000 to parties in Boston and Philadelphia. Now that so many mines are located in this Tombstone district, this first discovery is known at present as " The Tough Nut. "