Tombstone, Arizona, is the epitome of a Wild West town, at least as far as the pop culture lore of the Western genre goes. What made Tombstone stand out among other Western boomtowns? For one, it was the site of the famous gunfight at the O.K. corral. It was also a relatively large mining town at its height in the mid-1880s. And the characters of Tombstone were well documented in photographs, thanks to Fly's Photography, the studio founded by C.S. "Buck" Fly and his wife Mollie, who were both photographers. They set up shop in a tent in Tombstone in 1879, but soon built a sturdy wooden building.
Even though he now had a more professional studio, Buck Fly spent much of his time out in the field, mostly focused on outdoor photography. While he was often absent and searched the countryside for potential photographic motifs such as mills, soldiers, ranchers, and picturesque panoramas, his wife Mollie ran both the pension and the studio. At a time where female photographers were extremely rare, newspaper reports claim that Mollie actively participated in her husband’s business and that she operated Fly’s Gallery when Buck was away. She handled the indoor portraits, charging 35 cents for cabinet cards. All of the studio portraits however are credited to her husband C.S. Fly. Almost everyone in Tombstone at the time Fly’s studio was open had their picture taken.
Both the portraits and the outdoor photography give us a look into the history of Tombstone. Fly combined the two techniques in his images of Geronimo and his men, which are the only photographs ever taken of Native Americans still at war with US forces. Read about C.S. and Molli Fly and see a collection of their Tombstone photographs at Messy Nessy Chic.