“Died a Natural Death”

Miles Kellogg was a saloon owner and professional violinist in Tombstone in the early 1880s.  The legends say that he was a passenger on the Bisbee stage, just a mile out of Tombstone, when it was attacked by robbers in October 1882.  Shots were fired and Kellogg keeled over—dead from a heart attack.

That story is wrong.  The Tombstone Epitaph reported that Kellogg died a few months earlier, probably of alcohol-related illness.  He was buried in Boot Hill, where his marker says, “Died a Natural Death.” That part is right.