Courthouse - Tombstone, Arizona
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 31° 42.744 W 110° 04.135
12R E 588220 N 3508934
Historic former county courthouse now a state historic park in Tombstone, Arizona.
Waymark Code: WMHKPT
Location: Arizona, United States
Date Posted: 07/20/2013
Views: 9
The COURTHOUSE, 3rd and Toughnut Sts., a two-story red-brick building, erected in 1882, was vacated in 1931 when the county seat was moved to Bisbee. The large courtroom was the scene of many dramatic trials, and in the courtyard to the northwest there were several hangings.
It was from the jail of this courthouse that John Heath, accomplice of five masked men who killed five men and a woman while robbing a store in Bisbee, was taken and lynched on February 22, 1884. The policeman on duty at the City Hall heard a commotion in the direction of the courthouse early in the morning while he was raising the flag, and tying the flag where it was, only part way up the pole, he went to investigate. Thus it was that throughout the day John Heath was lynched the flag on Tombstone s City Hall, unnoticed in the excitement, hung at half-mast. The six-man coroners jury that deliberated on the lynching of Heath rendered a whitewash verdict, declaring the deceased came to his untimely end "due to strangulation, self-inflicted or otherwise."- Arizona: A State Guide, Tombstone section, pg. 249-250.
The Tombstone Courthouse is now operated as a museum and a state historic park. After the county offices left the building in 1931 except for a brief ill-fated attempt to make the courthouse into a hotel in the 1940s the building stood vacant until 1955. At that time the building was acquired by the Tombstone Restoration Commission and rehabilitation began. It began operating as a state historical park in 1959 and has since.
It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.