Some say that the gang left it there in a well-concealed hiding spot, planning to come back for it, and that it’s still there, waiting to be found. But, to this day, no one is entirely sure what happened to the loot once stashed in Colossal Cave. Courtesy of Colossal Cave Mountain ParkĮventually, the gang widely accepted to be behind the thefts botched another train robbery near El Paso several died in the ensuing shoot-out, the others stood trial. By the time the law reached the hideout in Colossal Cave, the bandits had disappeared, as had their cache of stolen goods. After several hold-ups, sheriffs and deputies, assorted cavalry, Yuma Indian trackers, and even Marshal Virgil Earp formed a posse to hunt down the gang. They hit several trains in quick succession, disappearing into the Rincon Mountains after each. Tucson’s Colossal Cave was a real-life hideout for a gang of train-robbing outlaws. Bandits would then bring the goods back to their hideout, where they would lay low until they decided to strike again. Passengers’ jewelry, personal valuables in the train’s safe, anything of worth being transported … nothing was off-limits. Bandits would tamper with the track and converge on the stopped train, guns blazing.

Colossal Caveīesides shootouts, train robberies were also common in the Wild West. And make sure to visit the Birdcage Theatre, the town’s old brothel that’s allegedly haunted by the ghost of a former prostitute. It draws in tourists from all over with its daily re-enactments of the showdown, its old-timey saloons like Big Nose Kate’s, and its boothill cemetery, where you can see the final resting place of the three cowboys killed in the shoot-out. Things in Tombstone remained contentious until the silver mines started failing in the mid-1880s.īut Tombstone’s violent past has, in essence, saved the city. It was widely covered in papers across the country, and became a symbol for how violent the West was. The shootout lasted only thirty seconds, and at the end of it, Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were dead. The two groups had been going back and forth for a while, so all it took was a chance encounter on the street for things to turn deadly. Tensions were already high between locals and perceived “outsiders” who came in to run the mines, so the Cowboys didn’t take kindly to the brothers or their friend, notorious gunman Doc Holliday. The Earp brothers-famed lawmen Morgan, Virgil and Wyatt-eventually came into town to dole out a bit of justice. They were small-time criminals, rustling cattle, stealing horses, holding up stagecoaches, and generally getting up to no good. Members included Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury. The town was plagued by a loosely-banded gang known as the Cowboys. The year was 1881, right in the midst of a silver mining boom in Tombstone. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, only about an hour’s drive from Tucson. One of the most famous shoot-outs in the history of the American West was the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and brilliant robberies to the Western movies that immortalized it all, Tucson is the perfect place to relive the best parts of the glory days of the Wild West. Any Western town worth its salt saw gunfights and hold-ups, but back in the day, Arizona was especially notorious. It was all about the gold-and with the riches came outlaws.

Few eras in history have been as romanticized as the Wild West.

Colossal cave tucson