Business Notes Real Estate

Many a Western legend was born over whisky and roulette at the Crystal Palace Saloon in Tombstone, Ariz. Wyatt Earp, who took part in the famed shootout at the O.K. Corral (just two blocks away), gambled there. Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson came for serious drinking, while upstairs Pioneer Surgeon George Goodfellow removed bullets from slow-moving cowboys. Despite harrowing moments and hard times, the saloon is still in business and is now up for sale. The asking price: $500,000.

The only time the 107-year-old Crystal Palace ever closed its doors was during Prohibition. At one time or other, it served as a makeshift movie theater and honky-tonk. In 1963 Wallace Clayton, editor of the National Tombstone Epitaph, and Partner Harold Love, along with two other investors, bought the place for $100,000 and spent another $100,000 restoring its original 1880s decor, including 20-ft. ceilings, swinging doors and frosted- glass windows. Now Clayton and Love's widow are ready to retire, but they say that the Crystal Palace is profitable. Local ranchers and tourists enjoy being served by bartenders who wear stiff cotton shirts, string ties and black pants, just like in the days when Wyatt Earp dealt a mean game of faro.