Doc Holliday in Prescott

Before Tombstone made him legend, Doc Holliday found Prescott to his liking. He arrived in November 1879 with Wyatt and James Earp and their families; when the Earps pushed on to Tombstone, Holliday lingered here through much of 1880, boarding in a house behind this marker alongside the acting territorial governor, John Gosper. By Wyatt Earp's account, the tubercular dentist-turned-gambler did very well at the faro tables along Whiskey Row. It was one of the few settled interludes in a short, restless life that ended in Colorado in 1887.

What the plaque says

John Henry Doc Holliday of Tombstone fame spent two separate tenures in Prescott. In early November 1879, Doc arrived with Wyatt and James Earp and their families. The Earp brothers, including Virgil who had been a Prescott constable, journeyed on to Tombstone while Doc stayed behind in Prescott, which he found to his liking. Holliday lived with Richard Elliott, whose house sat on three lots behind this marker. Also boarding there was the acting governor, John Gosper. According to Wyatt Earp, Doc did very well gambling along Whiskey Row.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Prescott — steps away
  Arizona's first territorial capital — Whiskey Row, the courthouse square, and a mile-high pine town
• Jerome — 25 mi
  The billion-dollar copper camp clinging to Cleopatra Hill — now the largest ghost town in America
• Tuzigoot — 30 mi
  A hilltop Sinagua pueblo over the Verde, dug out of the ground in the Depression

More markers nearby

• Prescott, Territorial Capital — steps away
• Site of the Territorial Courthouse — steps away
• Whiskey Row — steps away
• The Palace Saloon — steps away