The Bird Cage Theatre

The Bird Cage Theatre in Tombstone, Arizona was opened on 26 December 1881 by William J. "Billy" Hutchinson. Hutchison, a variety performer, originally intended to present respectable family shows like that he'd seen in San Francisco that were thronged by large crowds. After the Theatre opened, they hosted a Ladies Night for the respectable women of Tombstone, who could attend for free. But the economics of Tombstone didn't support their aspirations. They soon canceled the Ladies Night and began offering baser entertainment that appealed to the rough mining crowd.

Once inside, customers could buy a drink at the long bar. The bar was made in Pittsburgh, PA, shipped on the Star of India around the tip of south America to Mexico, then by wagon train the rest of the way. There's a 45 caliber bullet hole with the bullet still intact in one of the posts in the bar. 

Across from the bar hung a painting of Fatima, a buxom belly-dancer in an exotic Oriental outfit. The painting was given as a thank-you gift from Fatima to the Bird Cage Theatre for helping her to start her career. It is still hanging on the wall across from the bar. The canvas has six bullet holes and a knife slash in it. 

The main hall contained an orchestra pit and a 15' x 15' stage about 5' above the main floor. The stage was lit by a row of gas jets along the front side. There were 14 cages or boxes on two balconies located on either side of the main hall. These boxes, also known as cribs, featured drapes that patrons could draw while entertained by prostitutes. A dumbwaiter at the end of the bar was used to hoist up the whiskey, beer and cigars to the male customers in the cribs.

Between acts, the dancing girls in short dresses and low-cut necklines served drinks and offered sex. Beer was 50 cents on the main floor and $1.00 in the cages. The ladies received a percentage of all the drinks they sold.

In the basement, a poker room was the site of the longest-running poker game in history. Played continuously 24 hours a day for eight years, five months and three days, legend has it that as much as $10,000,000 changed hands during the marathon game, with the house retaining 10%. Some of the participants were Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Diamond Jim Brady, George Hearst and Adolphus Busch of the Busch Brewery. The basement also had two more ornate and expensive bordello rooms with more high dollar escorts. Josephine Sarah Marcus worked as both a performer and escort in the bordello room. That is where she met Wyatt Earp and they began their love affair. She eventually became his third wife and they were together for over 47 years.

The Bird Cage Theatre operated continuously, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for 8 years, from 1881 to 1889. It's reputation prompted the New York Times to report in 1882 that "the Bird Cage Theatre is the wildest, wickedest night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast". More than 120 bullet holes are found throughout the building.

One of the first acts at the Birdcage was Mademoiselle De Granville (real name, Alma Hayes), also known as the "Female Hercules" and "the woman with the iron jaw". She performed feats of strength, specializing in picking up heavy objects with her teeth. Other acts included the Irish comic duo Burns and Trayers (John H. Burns and Matthew Trayers), comic singer Irene Baker, Carrie Delmar, a serious opera singer, and comedian Nola Forest. Lizette, "The Flying Nymph", flew from one side of the theatre to the other on a rope. One of the more elaborate acts featured "The Human Fly" in which women dressed in theatrical tights and brief costumes walked across the stage ceiling upside down. This act lasted until one of the clamps supporting the performers failed and she fell to her death.

Entertainment included masquerade balls featuring cross-dressing entertainers like comedians David Waters and Will Curlew who appeared in outrageous female costumes, sang vulgar ballads and performed outlandish antics, bawdy skits. Each evening entertainment began with a variety show at 9:00 p.m. and lasted until 1:00 a.m. or later. When the stage show ended, the wooden benches where the audience sat were stacked on the side. The orchestra performed and the audience danced and drank until the sun rose. Miners could drink and dance all night if they chose.

In March 1882, miners in the Grand Central Mine hit water at 620'. The flow wasn't at first large enough to stop work, but constant pumping with a 4" pump was soon insufficient. The silver ore deposits they sought were soon underwater. Hutchinson sold the Birdcage to Hugh McCrum and John Stroufe and they sold it again in January 1886 to Joseph W. "Joe" Bignon and his wife, Matilda "Big Minnie" Quigley.

Bignon had managed the Theatre Comique in San Francisco and performed as a black face minstrel and clog dancer. He refurbished the building and renamed it the Elite Theatre. He hired new acts interspersed with the bawdy entertainment the miners were used to. Matilda was 6' tall and weighed 230 pounds. She wore pink tights, sang, danced, played the piano, and sometimes acted as madam to the prostitutes in the cribs and bouncer.

The large Cornish engines brought in by the mine owners kept the water pumped out of the mines for a few more years, but on 26 May 1886, the Grand Central Mine hoist and pumping plant burned. When the price of silver slid to 90 cents an ounce a few months later, the remaining mines laid off workers. Many residents of Tombstone left and the Bird Cage closed in 1892.

The building was not opened again until it was purchased in 1934. The new owners were delighted to find that almost nothing had been disturbed in all those years. It has been a tourist attraction ever since, and is open to the general public year-round.