Top of page

Notice
Wednesday, January 28, 2026: Due to inclement weather, The Library will open the reading rooms to researchers at 9:30 AM following the one (1) hour delayed arrival for staff.
Chronicling America
National Endowment for the Humanities

Newspaper Tombstone Weekly Epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.) 1882-1887 Weekly epitaph

View All Front Pages

About Tombstone Weekly Epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.) 1882-1887

The Tombstone Epitaph took its first breath of life in 1880 as a Republican paper under the operation of John P. Clum, Thomas Sorin, and later that year, Charles Reppy. Clum chose the name for the paper because he felt that every tombstone had to have an epitaph. According to William H. Lyon, in his book, Those Old Yellow Dog Days, Frontier Journalism in Arizona 1859-1912, Clum’s friends “thought the name alone would kill the paper,” yet “Clum took pride in his morbid creation” and felt that the Tombstone Epitaph would serve as a journal which represented and built up mining, Tombstone’s founding industry.

In 1881, as postmaster and mayor of Tombstone, as well as the editor and publisher of the Epitaph, Clum ventured farther into politics with a self-proclaimed goal of ridding the town of corruption while creating peace and wealth for its citizens. One of his first orders of business was addressing what he called “the county ring,” a group of crooked officials and local ranchers who Clum claimed were allied with outlaw elements. This alleged alliance served to fracture the town of Tombstone, resulting in the formation of two opposing camps. On the one side were Clum, the Epitaph, local Republicans, mining interests, and the Earp brothers. On the other were the rival Weekly Nugget, local Democrats, ranchers, and several so-called “cowboys”–men who were not exactly law-abiding citizens. The infamous October 1881 shootout between the Earps, Doc Holliday, and the Clanton and McLaury brothers at the O.K. Corral, as well as Clum’s coverage of this event in the Epitaph, is a testament to the extreme political division among Tombstone’s citizens at that time.

Added to the mix, another Republican paper entitled simply the Tombstone was created in 1882. It ran every day except Sunday under the editorial direction of James J. Nash and later became the Daily Tombstone, renamed in 1886 the Daily Tombstone Epitaph. In 1882, the Tombstone Epitaph began publishing both a daily and a weekly paper, the Tombstone Daily Epitaph and the Tombstone Weekly Epitaph, respectively. The Epitaph went through various changes during this period. It turned Democrat when Harry Woods took over as editor in 1883. The following year, it became Republican when it consolidated with the Tombstone Republican as the Tombstone Daily Epitaph and Republican. A Democratic judge, George Berry then combined the Cochise Record and the Tombstone Epitaph to become the Daily-Record Epitaph in 1885. Berry employed the help of John O. Dunbar, a Republican, as editor. This newspaper was replaced by the Daily Tombstone Epitaph later that same year, before changing its masthead back to the Tombstone Daily Epitaph in 1887.

The original title, Tombstone Epitaph, was resurrected as a weekly publication when Charles Reppy once again took over the editorial reins with George Peck in 1887. The paper became an independent periodical in 1891 with Stanley C. Bagg as publisher and editor. Bagg also owned the rival daily Tombstone Prospector, and in 1893 the weekly edition of the Epitaph became the Sunday edition of the Prospector.

On March 7, 1924, the Prospector, which included the Epitaph’s Sunday edition, changed its daily masthead to become the Tombstone Epitaph.  Arizona’s oldest continuously printed newspaper, the Epitaph is still in circulation today.

Research provided by the University of Arizona Libraries.

Provided By: Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records; Phoenix, AZ

About this Newspaper

Title

  • Tombstone Weekly Epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.) 1882-1887

Other Title

  • Weekly epitaph

Dates of Publication

  • 1882-1887

Created / Published

  • Tombstone, Ariz. : Epitaph Print. and Pub. Co., 1882-

Headings

  • -  Tombstone (Ariz.)--Newspapers
  • -  Cochise County (Ariz.)--Newspapers
  • -  Arizona--Cochise County
  • -  Arizona--Tombstone
  • -  United States--Arizona--Cochise--Tombstone

Genre

  • Newspapers

Notes

  • -  Weekly
  • -  Vol. 3, no. 50 (June 24, 1882)-
  • -  Ceased 1887.
  • -  Archived issues are available in digital format as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America online collection.
  • -  Tombstone epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz. : 1887) 2157-6777 (DLC)sn 95060905 (OCoLC)33880523

Medium

  • volumes

Call Number/Physical Location

  • Newspaper

Digital Id

Library of Congress Control Number

  • sn95060906

OCLC Number

  • 33882877

ISSN Number

  • 2158-4826

Preceding Titles

Succeeding Titles

Additional Metadata Formats

Availability

Rights & Access

The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety. Any newspapers in Chronicling America that were published less than 95 years ago are also believed to be in the public domain, but may contain some copyrighted third party materials. Researchers using newspapers published less than 95 years ago should be alert for modern content (for example, registered and renewed for copyright and published with notice) that may be copyrighted. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The NEH awardee responsible for producing each digital object is presented in the Chronicling America page display, below the page image – e.g. Image produced by the Library of Congress. For more information on current NDNP awardees, see https://aj.sunback.homes/ndnp/listawardees.html.

For more information on Library of Congress policies and disclaimers regarding rights and reproductions, see https://aj.sunback.homes/homepage/legal.html

Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Tombstone Weekly Epitaph Tombstone, Ariz. -1887. (Tombstone, AZ), Jan. 1 1882. https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn95060906/.

APA citation style:

(1882, January 1) Tombstone Weekly Epitaph Tombstone, Ariz. -1887. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://aj.sunback.homes/item/sn95060906/.

MLA citation style:

Tombstone Weekly Epitaph Tombstone, Ariz. -1887. (Tombstone, AZ) 1 Jan. 1882. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, aj.sunback.homes/item/sn95060906/.