Boothill Graveyard was laid out as a burial plot in 1878.  Called “The Tombstone Cemetery,” it was the burial-place for the town’s first pioneers and was used as such until sometime around 1884, when the present plot was opened as a burial-place.

For years after this, Boothill was spoken of as the “old cemetery.”  It lay for years neglected and much of the old cemetery has gone back to nature.  Years of research and hard work by interested citizens of the town have helped to preserve the main part of the cemetery as you see it today.

Because of the many violent deaths of the early days, the cemetery became known as Boothill Graveyard.  It is possibly a true symbol of this roaring mining town of the early 1880s.  Buried here are outlaws with their victims, suicides, and hangings, legal and otherwise, along with the hardy citizens and refined element of Tombstone’s first days.

So much of the good and so much of the bad of early Tombstone lies buried here, and over the graves of both is growing–the true crucifixion thorn.

Excerpt taken directly from http://www.boothillgraves.com/. For a detailed list of who is buried here, please visit that website.