What happened
The Bird Cage Theatre was opened in Tombstone on 26 December 1881 by Lottie and William “Billy” Hutchinson, at the height of Arizona’s silver rush – two months after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. It was at once a variety theatre, saloon, gambling hall and brothel: above the hall hung boxes where prostitutes worked, and in the basement, according to tradition, the longest poker game in history was played – from 1881 to 1889, with a $1,000 buy-in and players such as Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp. The walls and ceiling bear bullet holes from the days when gunfighters and miners settled scores here. When the mines flooded and the town declined, the place closed in 1892; today it is a museum with its original fittings, including a hearse known as the “Black Moriah.” Guides and night-tour guests tell of a “Lady in White” in the narrow corridor behind the stage, figures on the stairs and in the boxes, music and laughter from the empty hall, and strange shapes in photographs.
Witnesses
Museum staff and participants in the nightly ghost tours; the building has featured on the TV programmes “Ghost Hunters” and “Ghost Adventures.”
Explanations and hypotheses
The history of the building is largely documented, but some of the stories are frontier legend: the tale of an eight-year poker game with famous gunfighters comes from the owners and is hard to confirm, and the numbers of dead and of bullet holes quoted by guides vary. Sources do not even agree on the year the theatre closed. The phenomena described on the museum’s own tours are anecdotal; dark, cramped rooms full of old objects lend themselves to reflections in photographs and to suggestion.
Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.
Sources
More: Wikipedia (en)