Tombstone's Treasure: Silver Mines and Golden Saloons

by Sherry Monahan

Sherry Monahan is an authority on "the city that wouldn't die" and its history. In Tombstone's Treasure , she focuses on the silver mines, one reason for the city's founding, and the saloons, the other reason the city grew so quickly. When the discovery of silver at Tombstone first became known in mid-1880, there were about twenty-six saloons and breweries. By July of the following year, the number of saloons in Tombstone had doubled. The most popular saloon games of the time were faro, monte, and poker, with some offering keno, roulette, and twenty-one. Monahan shares true tales about Tombstone's mining and gambling history and describes a different time and locale where wealthy businesspeople and rugged miners rubbed elbows at the bar and gambled side by side.
It is both shocking and enlightening to learn just how sophisticated Tombstone really was when the Earps, Doc Holliday, Johnny Ringo, and Curly Bill strode the boardwalks. Tombstone actually had telephones, ice cream parlors, coffee shops, a bowling alley, and a swimming pool. Wow! It is so contrary to the Hollywood version of the town . . . but it's absolutely true."--from the Foreword by Bob Boze Bell

Genres: History

215 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Sherry Monahan a.k.a. S.A. Monahan


Sherry became enchanted with food at a young age. Her paternal grandfather was cook at a lumber camp and her father and aunts and uncles loved to cook. She studied Home Economics in middle school and fell in love. When her modeling career didn’t take off, she turned back to cooking and studied restaurant management. She didn’t want to spend 100-120 hours per week in the kitchen, so she fuels her food passion by writing about it. She also has a love of good wine, some beer, and cocktails. She enjoys visiting wineries and distilleries and discovering new labels. Her creative cooking skills produce some tasty meals, but it also lends itself to mixing drinks. She loves trying old classics and concocting new ones.

She began her writing career when she combined her passion for food, travel, and history. She penned her first book, Taste of Tombstone, in 1998. That same passion landed her a monthly magazine column in 2009 when she began writing her food column in True West entitled, Frontier Fare.

Sherry is a culinary historian who enjoys researching the genealogy of food and spirits. While there’s still plenty to explore about frontier food, she’s expanding her culinary repertoire to include places and foods from all over America and beyond.

She holds memberships in the James Beard Foundation, the Author’s Guild, Single Action Shooting Society, and the Wild West History Association. She is the past president of Western Writers of America (2014-2016), a professional genealogist, an honorary Dodge City marshal, and a member of the Most Intrepid Western Author Posse.

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opening:

Settin’ Up Camp

Tombstone’s Discovery and Its Silver Mines

After Tombstone’s founder, Ed Schieffelin, discovered silver in Tombstone’s hills, people came by the thousands. The first to set up camp were hopeful miners and prospectors, followed by assayers, businessmen, and eventually their families.

Before all that though, Ed roamed Arizona Territory searching for silver and gold. Fearing Indians, he tagged along with an army scout team who eventually stopped at Fort Huachuca, some twenty miles from the rich Tombstone hills. Ed used “Camp Huachuca” as his home base while he made several prospecting trips to the Apache-filled hills.

[Sherry Monahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book, but then again I wrote it!