Brown's Hotel and Hafford's Saloon

Tombstone ran on more than silver; it ran on beds and drinks. Charles Brown opened a tent hash house on this corner in 1879, then built a two-story adobe hotel by 1880 with a kitchen big enough to feed three hundred. The ground floor held Hafford's Saloon, kept by a colonel who was also an avid ornithologist, assembling a bird collection later sent east to the Smithsonian. The 1882 fire that swept downtown took the building; Brown left for California, and the corner has turned to other trades in the decades since.

What the plaque says

Brown's Hotel and Hafford's Saloon. In 1879, Charles Brown opened the Mohave Hotel and one of the first "hash houses" in a tent on this corner. By 1880 he erected a two story adobe building with what was now called the Brown Hotel on the second floor. He had a kitchen large enough to feed 300 guests. The first floor was leased to Hafford's Saloon. Col. Hafford loved birds and the walls of the saloon were covered with pictures of them. Brown's Hotel and Hafford's Saloon were destroyed in the 1882 fire and were not reopened. Brown left for California. In 1886, Col. Hafford returned and opened another Saloon. He was Tombstone's earliest Ornithologist. He and Otto Poling assembled a collection of over 2000 specimens from the Huachuca Mountains which were sent to the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Over the years this historic building has been a service station and auto parts store, the Crystal Palace Variety Store and a liquor and general merchandise store. In recent years it has become Arlene's Southwest Store.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tombstone — steps away
  The silver strike named for a death that never came
• Bisbee — 21 mi
  Queen of the Copper Camps — and the deportation it tried to forget

More markers nearby

• "Buckskin" Frank Leslie & Luke Short — steps away
• Schieffelin Hall — steps away
• Bird Cage Theatre — steps away
• Home & Office of Wm. Herring — steps away