Cochise County in the Old West

Cochise County in the Old West

Cochise County in 1881, at the beginning of the silver boom.
Date	c.1850 – 1900
Location	Cochise County, Arizona

Cochise County in the Old West was the site of ongoing Apache Indian attacks and a bitter feud between outlaw Cowboys and lawmen like Virgil Earp and his brothers. The county was carved off in 1881 from the easternmost portion of Pima County during a formative period in the American Southwest. Tensions began as soon as American settlers began arriving in what is now Cochise County. The time period was characterized by rapidly growing boomtowns, ongoing Apache raids, smuggling and cattle rustling across the United States-Mexico border, growing ranching operations, and the expansion of new technologies in mining, railroading, and telecommunications.

In the 1860s, following the Gadsden Purchase and the arrival of American settlers, conflict between the Apaches and the Americans was at its height. Pima County and later Cochise County were located in the center of the Apache wars and until 1886 there was almost constant warfare in that region adjacent to the Mexican border.

In addition to the conflict with the Native Americans, during the 1870s and 1880s, there was considerable tension between the rural residents who were for the most part Democrats from the agrarian Confederate States and town residents and business owners who were largely Republicans from the industrial Union States. The tension culminated in what has been called the Cochise County feud, or the Earp-Clanton feud, which ended with the historic Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Ride. Dr. George E. Goodfellow described Tombstone, the capital of Cochise County, as the "condensation of wickedness."