This program took place in the
boomtown of
Tombstone,
Arizona Territory, one of the
Old West's most notorious towns and the site of the shootout known as the
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Located south of
Tucson, Tombstone was then known by the
sobriquet "the town too tough to die". The program's theme song, "Whistle Me Up a Memory", was written by William M. Backer and performed by Jimmy Blaine. The series did not deal with real characters in the history of Tombstone in the 1880s, such as
Wyatt Earp,
Doc Holliday, or the
Clanton gang, with the exception of
Curly Bill Brocius, who appeared in the first season. It was about fictional characters in the
American Southwest. The first episode opens, according to the narrator, on August 4, 1881. Conway played Sheriff Clay Hollister. Eastham, the only other actor besides Conway to appear in all the episodes, played Harris Claibourne, editor of
The Tombstone Epitaph (an actual
newspaper that still exists in limited form). Eastham, originally a singer in opera and on Broadway, also narrated the series in a deep
baritone voice, describing each episode as an actual report from the newspaper's archives.
Gerald Mohr played Doc Holliday in the first-season
Tombstone Territory episode titled "Doc Holliday in Durango", initially broadcast in 1958. The previous year, Mohr had portrayed Holliday in an episode of
Maverick titled "
The Quick and the Dead" starring
James Garner and
Marie Windsor. Mohr's version of Holliday was identical in both series. The ending credits indicate, "This series is produced with the full cooperation of Clayton A. Smith, editor of the
TOMBSTONE EPITAPH and D'Estell Iszard, historian". The program was a notable early example of a television network imitating itself. At the time it was airing
Tombstone Territory, whose main character resembled Wyatt Earp in everything but name, ABC also was broadcasting
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. ==Cast==