April 2026

History

The Bird Cage Theatre: Tombstone's Rowdiest Stage

When the Bird Cage Theatre opened on Allen Street in December 1881, Tombstone was at the height of its boom. The mines were producing, the saloons were packed, and the town had developed an appetite for entertainment that matched its appetite for silver. Operated by Hutchinson's Variety Company, the Bird Cage filled a specific niche in Tombstone's social landscape: it was the place for variety acts, not polished theater. While Schieffelin Hall catered to the town's doctors, lawyers, and mine officials with light opera and stock companies, the Bird Cage served a rougher, more democratic crowd.

The acts came primarily from San Francisco and changed regularly to keep Tombstone's residents coming back. Singers, comedians, impersonators, clog and jig dancers, banjo players, and balladeers all took the Bird Cage stage. General admission was 50 cents; private boxes along the walls went for $2.50, and a well-stocked bar at the back served those upper-tier patrons by way of a dumb waiter. Notable entertainers who passed through Tombstone during these years included Eddie Foy, the Nellie Boyd Dramatic Troupe, the Royal Italian Marionette Troupe, and Black minstrel groups. By 1882, Tombstone had earned a reputation as a "show town," meaning traveling entertainers knew the audiences there were lively and the pay was good.

One of the theatre's most popular events was a Wednesday evening gathering that combined a domino party with a masquerade ball. Attendees came in costume, paraded down Allen Street before the festivities began, and danced in private dressing rooms provided for the ladies. The Bird Cage, for all its rough reputation, knew how to put on an event. It operated nightly until late 1885, when the mines had largely closed and the population had thinned enough to make nightly entertainment impractical.

The building sat empty for more than four decades. When Tombstone organized its first Helldorado celebration in October 1929, the Bird Cage was restored as a central attraction. Workers cleared out "forty years of rubbage," repaired the rotting floor, and brought the theatre back to life as a vaudeville showcase. Annie Duncan, known in her day as the "Tombstone Nightingale," returned to perform songs she had sung there in the 1880s, this time accompanied by a troupe of cancan dancers. The restored Bird Cage became part of the argument that Tombstone could offer a genuine Wild West experience no other town could match, and it has remained a Tombstone landmark ever since.

New on the Site

Recently Published

Several new articles went up this month, covering a range of Tombstone history:

• From Ore to Silver Bar — How raw silver ore was crushed, amalgamated, and refined into finished bars at the Tombstone mills.
• Ed Schieffelin: The Man Who Found Tombstone — The life of the stubborn prospector who ignored everyone's warnings and discovered one of the richest silver strikes in the West.
• Why Did The Mines Close? — The combination of flooding, pump failures, and falling silver prices that brought Tombstone's boom to an end.
• The Sonoran Earthquake of 1887 — The powerful tremor that struck Tombstone at 2:11 PM on May 3, 1887, shaking buildings and sending miners scrambling to the surface.