Photo by Lee Russell, 1940, Courtesy Library of Congress

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

First published on May 1, 1880, the Tombstone Epitaph was founded by John Phlip Clum, a former Indian agent and Tombstone's first mayor. Clum was living in Tucson, Arizona, publishing the Tucson Citizen, when word began to spread about the discovery of silver in Tombstone in the late 1870s. The newspaper man soon decided to start his own paper in Tombstone against the advice of many of his publishing associates. As a lark, Clum named the paper the "Epitaph" to rebuff those associates who had predicted an early demise for the fledgling paper. Boy, were they wrong!

The Epitaph today has been published for more than a century. In its early days, it was noted for its coverage of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral as well the many other accounts of Tombstone's lawlessness. Today, souvenir copies of the paper accounting the most famous gunfight  in history can still be purchased.

Clum had a new hand printing press shipped from San Francisco to Tucson, then on to Tombstone by ox cart. This 1880's historic press, as well as other period equipment can still be seen in the Epitaph today.

Obviously a man with some humor, Clum proclaimed in the first issue of of his newspaper, "No Tombstone is complete without an Epitaph."

As Tombstone mayor and editor of the Tombstone Epitaph, Clum was obviously involved in the local politics of the time, and by some accounts, helped in inciting the tensions between the Earps and the Cowboy faction. In fact, after the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Clum learned that his name was on a "death list," made up by the cowboys. In December, 1881, December 1881, Clum narrowly escaped what he considered an assassination attempt when highwaymen attempted to rob the stagecoach he was in.

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