Horses pull stagecoaches full of tourists around Tombstone’s historic district, which still looks a lot like it did when Wyatt Earp was judge, jury and executioner.
But of some vintage buildings, like the Crystal Palace Saloon, have modern political signs urging people to re-elect the mayor.
Bad blood made Tombstone one of the most legendary places of the Wild West, and the lineage still flows in local politics, especially the mayor’s race.
“By and large, this can be a very hostile environment if you’re the mayor,” said Tombstone city council candidate Steve Troncale. “That seems to be the focal point for a lot of ire. Because that’s the hot seat.”
Steve Troncale knows politics. He helped Ronald Reagan run for governor, has served as Tombstone’s mayor pro tem and is a candidate for city council. This year’s mayoral race, which was decided Tuesday, was cleaner than others, he said.
But one contender who didn’t make the ballot has accused incumbent Mayor Dusty Escapule of colluding with city officials to block him.
“I know for a fact Dusty conspired to keep me off,” said Mike Carrafa. “There’s no maybe.”
Carrafa protested to the Arizona Attorney General, and a spokeswoman said a review is underway. Carrafa said he also complained to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI's Phoenix office would neither confirm or deny an investigation.
Tombstone Economics
Actors re-enact the gunfight at the OK Corral several times a day. Tombstone's economy is tourism, and its home to a lot of entertainers for a city with about 1,400 people.
“It’s a place that should have a lot more tourism than we have,” said actor Rob Tenny, who plays Morgan Earp. “I mean right now, we’re in the slowest part of the season and it’s literally dead.”
Research shows millennials aren’t drawn to Tombstone like previous generations. Motel owner Gordon Anderson said that can change.
“I know young people that come here are enthralled, and do pay attention, and are interested,” Anderson said.
Anderson is president of Tombstone Forward, an organization with a mission to promote Tombstone to a wider audience. He thinks the number of yearly visitors could be doubled to one million or more.
“We have the brand name,” Anderson said. “We have the location. We may not have the facilities for some of the stuff, but slowly we’re getting them.”
Publish And Be Damned
Tombstone’s economy is healthy enough to support three newspapers. Mayor Escapule owns one. And Mike Carrafa, the would-be candidate who said Escapule and others illegally kept him off the ballot, owns part of another weekly paper. (The third paper is seasonal and published by student journalists)
Carrafa wears a sidearm on his hip, but a keyboard is his weapon of choice. He has skewered Escapule in print.
“I live by the philosophy, this old philosophy, and it’s from Rambo: You drew first blood,” Carrafa said.
The feud between Carrafa and Escapule goes back years. But it went from bad to worse this summer, when the city reviewed Carrafa’s signatures to run for mayor.
City officials discovered one of Carrafa’s circulators did prison time for a felony in another state. For that reason, Carrafa said the city wouldn’t send any of his signatures to Cochise County election officials. So he paid a lawyer $5,000 to get a judge to order the city to do it.
The county certified a couple more signatures than Carrafa needed to get on the ballot, and then sent them back to the city, which again refused to accept a handful collected by the circulator with a criminal past.
Carrafa alleges Escapule gave the city inforomation to run a background check on the circulator, which is why he had to watch Tuesday’s election, instead of participating.
“It’s like, I’ve really got a lot of other things in life to do than be mayor,” Carrafa said. “But unfortunately, the mayor we have now is killing our town.”
Escapule did not respond to several requests for an interview. He's denied Carrafa’s allegation on Facebook, and called Carrafa’s accusations against city officials libelous and “stupid.”
Tombstone officials wouldn’t talk either. The clerk declined comment. There’s currently no city manager. The city attorney did not return messages.
Unlike Carrafa, Escapule’s byline isn’t all over the front page of his newspaper, but there are articles about him. July editions featured stories about Escapule’s role in securing a large grant to upgrade Tombstone's water infrastructure, fixing flooding near the historic district and restoring the old city hall.
“Just in the last term that (Escapule's) had here, we’ve had more repairs done to the streets and more repairs done to the whole town than in the last 10 years prior to that,” said Sam Weber, a business owner.
Weber’s shop is one of several with re-elect Escapule signs. He supports a fifth term for the incumbent, and thinks Carrafa is a troublemaker.
Carrafa’s own newspaper has evidence backing Weber’s assessment. Carrafa recently wrote a story accusing Escapule’s wife of calling the Marshal on him, which led to a citation for disorderly conduct. Carrafa argued it's a First Amendment issue, and plans to fight the case.
“The biggest problem is (Carrafa) doesn’t voice his opinion and then drop it,” Weber said. “He just keeps going after it, and after it, and after it. I don’t believe that that’s fair.”
