Charleston & Millville, A.T. Hell on the San Pedro (Paperback)

The legendary story of Tombstone and Wyatt Earp has an untold missing link...the nearby town of Charleston. A town known for its "diversified viciousness," where the sounds of saloons filled with gambling tables and dance hall girls were sometimes mixed with celebratory gunfire in the streets. Learn of Wyatt Earp's siege of Charleston, as he searched for his brother, Virgil's, assailants. But the story of Charleston has far more depth and intrigue than just intermittent visits from Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Ike Clanton, and Curly Bill Brocius. It was home to the hard working men of Millville just across the San Pedro River, honest ranchers and cattle rustlers, storekeepers, gamblers, and outlaws. It was home base for smuggling American goods into Mexico. As one lawman wrote... "Charleston was a hangout for the riff-raff from Fort Huachuca, Bisbee, Tombstone, and other places where there were officers to see that they behaved themselves. In Charleston they were not molested harassed]...Jim Burnett, the justice of the peace, and Jerry Barton, the constable... paid little attention to keeping law and order." The industrial side of Charleston was Millville, where rich Tombstone Silver Ore was turned into bars of Bullion, briefly fueling Tombstone's economic rise to one of the great mining camps of the west. Fully sourced and footnoted with a great deal of previously unpublished primary sources, this is the first book published devoted to bringing this remarkable town to life. Much has been written of Tombstone's colorful days, but of the two locations, Charleston best fits the description of a truly wild west town, when the Arizona Territory was still far from being tamed and civilized. The complexities and contradictions of life in Charleston are summed up differently by its residents. But the town made an indelible impression upon many. "The only time in my life when I remember feeling cold sweat break out on my face from terror was when I was in Charleston... At that time, all we] could hear was about this or that killing or shooting scrape and I lived in constant fear. In fact, I was afraid to cross the street after dark." Historian John Rose now offers "Charleston and Millville, A.T. Hell on the San Pedro."