The Tombstone Epitaph

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The Tombstone Epitaph
Type	Twice monthly newspaper
Format	Broadsheet

Owner	University of Arizona
Publisher	William F. Greer
Editor	Terry L. Wimmer
Founded	1880
Language	English
Price	$.30 per copy at the store (minimum 20 copies from the UA) or $25 domestic yearly subscription; $35 international yearly subscription
Headquarters	UA Journalism Department P.O. Box 210158B Tucson, AZ 85721 United States
Circulation	1000

Website: journalism.arizona.edu/publications/epitaph

The Tombstone Epitaph is a community newspaper in Tombstone, Arizona that has been published for more than a century. It is noted for its coverage of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881.

[edit] Beginnings

The Epitaph published its first edition on May 1, 1880. The newspaper was founded by John Philip Clum, a former Indian agent and Tombstone's first mayor.

Clum was living in Tucson, Arizona and publishing a newspaper, the Tucson Citizen, when word began to spread about the discovery of silver in Tombstone in the late 1870s. Clum decided that Tombstone was a favorable location for a new journalism venture.

Clum had a Washington Hand Press, originally shipped by boat from New York to San Francisco and used for printing various gold mining boomtown newspapers, shipped from San Diego to Tucson by rail transport. The press was transported from Tucson to Tombstone by oxcart.

Clum named his new publication the Epitaph as a rebuff to associates who predicted the newspaper's early demise. The Epitaph proved successful, though Clum's term as publisher and editor ended when his two partners outvoted him on a buyout offer for the newspaper from parties at odds with Clum's crusade to clean-up Tombstone.

[edit] Later History

In 1975 publication of the Epitaph became a project of journalism students at the University of Arizona. Today the Epitaph is published twice a month during the fall and spring academic semesters.

The Epitaph is under the supervision of Associate Professor William F. Greer and Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Professor of Practice Terry L. Wimmer.

Annual subscriptions are available by sending a $25 domestic or $35 international check to the department address at

The Tombstone Epitaph
UA Journalism Department
P.O. Box 210158B
Tucson, Arizona, USA 85721

The Epitaph also has the distinction of being one of the last newspapers in the United States to sell for only 10 cents an issue. When the Epitaph raised its price to 25 cents in 1982, the Blowing Rocket in Blowing Rock, North Carolina was the only remaining National Press Association-affiliated newspaper charging 10 cents per copy.