TOMBSTONE PROSPECTOR, Arizona, June 4, 1889

• Very rare wild West publication
• Gunfight at the O.K. Corral fame

We have had a few other newspapers from the iconic Old West town of Tombstone, but this is perhaps the most uncommon. The masthead features a great engraving of a miner on a mule.
The content is much as would be expected from a mining town, including many legal notices concerning mines, etc. A wealth of ads as well.
Four pages, various chipping near the bottom margin of the back leaf, various archival mends at the margins, one being non-archival. Quite fragile and must be handled carefully.
A fine opportunity for a very rare title from this famous town.

Background: Printed eight years after the notorious 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, this June 4, 1889 issue of the Tombstone Prospector represents an exceptionally rare surviving piece of Arizona territorial journalism, far more elusive to collectors today than issues of the town's primary rival, the Tombstone Epitaph. Anchored by its signature front-page woodcut masthead depicting a miner riding a mule, the four-page paper offers an unvarnished snapshot of Tombstone's transition from a rowdy frontier boomtown into a mature mining hub. Its dense columns are filled with official Cochise County mining claim notices, local legal filings, territorial updates, and a vibrant spectrum of period advertisements—ranging from saloons and assayer offices to general mercantile stores—making it both a scarce physical relic of the Old West and a rich primary source detailing the daily economic and social fabric of the historic silver district.