Tombstone’s fabulous Bird Cage Theater opened December 23rd, 1881 to a raucous crowd territorial Arizonans. There’s no doubt in the realm of legend and lore, it is the richest of any theater or opera house in the Old West.
The bar was open twenty-four hours a day and the place was the soul of Tombstone at night. Dusty cowboys, day labor miners, drifters, droolers, and reprobates

True West March/April 2025
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Truth Be Known
- What Has Taught Me: Deb Goodrich
- Earp, Cowboy Songs & Prairie Hygiene
- Trails of the Old West
- The Frontier Characters of South Dakota
- The Bowie Knife
- The Kindled Flame 1835
- King of the Scatterguns
- Selling the Mythic West and the Real West
- A Gut Punch Turns into a Miracle Reprieve
- The Beginnings of the Bird Cage
- Frontier Colossus