Centennial State Diary (Historic Places Edition) – Doc Holliday Trail
Gravesite of Historic Dentist Turned Gambler-Gunslinger Doc Holliday in Pioneer Cemetery
Doc Holliday's Grave Trailhead Pioneer Cemetery
Bennett Avenue
Glenwood Springs, CO 81601
(970) 945-9699
http://www.visitglenwood.com/things-to-do/trail-guide/doc-holliday
About Doc Holliday’s Grave Trailhead
“Maybe poker just isn’t your game. I know, let’s have a spelling contest.”
-Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in the movie Tombstone
The town at the junction of US 70 and CO 82 is home to the grave of one of America’s most celebrated gunslingers, Jon Henry “Doc” Holliday. The gambler and gunslinger, who suffered from consumption (tuberculosis) since childhood, moved from Leadville, CO to Glenwood Springs, CO in 1887. Glenwood Springs had become a haven for those who suffered from respiratory ailments, and Doc Holliday checked into the Glenwood Hotel, with hope the water from the fabled hot springs would cure him of his malady. Unfortunately, he eventually died from tuberculosis at the age of 36 in November 1887.
The Glenwood Hotel, now the home of a mountaineering store on Eighth Street and Grand Avenue, bears signs at the base of its doors which state, “Doc Holliday died here.”
The Doc Holliday Trail leads to the headstone of the gunslinger in the Linwood Cemetery. It’s about a one-half mile hike up a steep dirt road; however, it does not actually mark his final resting place. According to local lore, Holliday is buried somewhere within the graveyard, but it’s unknown exactly where.
The current headstone was erected in 2004, is the third such headstone and is usually adorned with mementos such as playing cards and coins. The original headstone (put in place in the late 1950s) and the subsequent headstone both had to be replaced after about 25 years, reportedly because they had been shot up.
As an aside, another notable resident of the Linwood Cemetery is Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan who rode with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s infamous Wild Bunch Gang.
A Brief Biography of John Henry “Doc” Holliday
John Henry Holliday was born on August 4, 1851, in Griffin Georgia to Henry Holliday and Alice Jane Holliday. He was the second child to the couple, and he would remain the only living child of the Holliday couple with the death of his older sister in childbirth. Doc Holliday was born with a cleft palate, for which he received corrective surgery and it required extensive speech therapy, dutifully which was performed by his mother.
Doc was raised on the southern frontier of Georgia in a comfortable middle-class household. His father made his living as a druggist and was a veteran of several wars, most notably the Cherokee Indian War and the Mexican-American War. At the age of nine, the Civil War broke out in the United States, so Henry Holliday moved his family south to the Georgia-Florida border, then left for the Confederate Army to join the war.
In May 1866, when Doc was just 15 years of age, his mother, Alice Holliday died of consumption (tuberculosis) in what would come to foreshadow his own death from tuberculosis in 1887. A few years later, after the death of his mother, Doc began suffering from coughing fits and was diagnosed with consumption by a family doctor. This diagnosis effectively issued him a death sentence in the 1800’s. It is at this point, Doc heads west for Dallas, Texas in a search for a drier climate to mitigate the symptoms of tuberculosis.
The Gambler-Gunslinger Comes of Age
Once Doc Holliday arrived in Dallas in 1873, he became a dental partner with Dr. John A. Seegar, but his constant coughing and illness kept patients away. Within the first year of his practice, he discovered gambling was much more profitable than the practice of dentistry. Doc honed his skill at Faro, became a “banker” (Faro dealer) and in the process, he earned lots of money and made many enemies.
In 1879, he had made enough money to open his own saloon in New Mexico. A former army scout was patronizing the saloon one evening and he began to make a scene when one of Holliday’s saloon girls (possibly a prostitute) told him that she wasn’t in love with him. The army scout went outside and began to fire shots into Holliday’s establishment, so Doc Holliday responded by killing him. By the following year, history felt like it needed another immortal, so Doc rode to Tombstone, Arizona and into the history books with the shootout at the OK Corral and The Earp Vendetta Ride.
In 1887, Doc died from tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs, Colorado at the age of 36.
A Brief Biography on Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan
Harvey Logan was born in Richard Township in Tama County, Iowa in 1867. He was the third child of six children in the Logan family. Before becoming the infamous outlaw Kid Curry, Harvey Logan made his living breaking horses on the Cross L Ranch near Rising Star, Texas.
October 1894 marked a turn for Harvey Logan towards the life of an outlaw. A local miner, Powell Landusky, thought Harvey Logan was romantically involved with his daughter, and in a fit of rage, attacked Logan. Logan got the better of Powell, so Powell filed assault charges against him. A judge ruled at the inquest Logan appeared to be acting in self defense, so he scheduled a trial date and freed Harvey Logan. Later, Logan ran into Landusky at the saloon and a gunfight erupted. Landusky’s gun jammed during the gunfight and Harvey Logan shot Landusky in the head. Kid Curry was born.
Kid Curry rode with Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch and was often referred to as the “Wildest of the Wild Bunch.” He earned that reputation by reportedly killing nine law enforcement officers in five separate shootings in addition to another two men.
For several years, the Wild Bunch was one of the more successful criminal operations, robbing banks and trains in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada and New Mexico.
Kid Curry was eventually tracked down by a posse in Parachute, Colorado on June 7, 1904, where Kid Curry and two others robbed a Denver and Rio Grande train. Kid Curry was shot and wounded in a gunfight at Parachute and rather than being captured, Kid Curry fatally shot himself in the head.
My Visit to the Gravesites of John Henry “Doc” Holliday and Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan
The hike to Linwood Cemetery is about 1/2 of a mile on a rough trail tat runs at about a 20% grade (rise of one foot for every five feet forward) at an altitude of about 10,000 feet above sea level.
The scenic views of Glenwood from the trail are impressive and breathtaking, but the trail itself has absolutely no rails and in some places can only accomodate a single file of hikers.
The Wishing Tree
About Midway up the steep trail, I came across a tree covered with ribbons, and each ribbon has name written on it.
The significance of this tree, according to the Glenwood Springs Chamber, is a Wishing Tree memorial (in the Ute Indian Tradition) for a people suffering from cancer.
John Henry "Doc" Holliday Memorial Headstone
The grave site is not the actual resting place of Doc Holliday. It is widely known he was buried in Linwood, but his exact whereabouts are unknown. It is believed he was buried in Potters Field after he succumbed to tuberculosis. The memorial headstone sits on the west side of Linwood in the formal cemetery.
Visitors to Doc's grave generally leave coins as tribute to the gentleman gambler-gunslinger. My four year old daughter and I left some coin as well.
Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan Gravesite
Harvey "Kid Crry" Logan's final resting place is on the East side of Linwood back inside Potters Field. His grave is the only "marked" grave in Potters Field.
Visitors leave Kid Curry coins as well.
Citations
Blitz, Matt.” The ‘Real’ Doc Holliday.” Today I Found Out. December 15, 2014. Web. http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/12/real-doc-holliday/. Accessed August 1, 2016.
“Doc Holliday Biography.” A & E Television Networks. N.D. Web. http://www.biography.com/people/doc-holliday-9342122. Accessed August 9, 2016.
Tennant, Forest. “’Doc’ Holliday: A Story of Tuberculosis, Pain, and Self –Medication in the Wild West.” Practical Pain Management. April 15, 2015. Web. http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/pain/doc-holliday-story-tuberculosis-pain-self-medication-wild-west. Accessed August 1, 2016.
Weiser, Kathy. “Harvey Logan, aka ‘Kid Curry’.” Legends of America. June 2014. Web. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-harveylogan.html. Accessed August 1, 2016.