Bird Cage Theatre

The Bird Cage Theatre opened in Tombstone, Arizona, on December 26, 1881, during the silver-mining boom and became one of the town’s most vivid boomtown institutions. Owned by Lottie and William “Billy” Hutchinson, it began with hopes of offering respectable entertainment but soon catered to the rough mining crowd with more provocative acts. Its frontier reputation grew from gunshot-scarred walls, balcony boxes where prostitutes worked, and a wide variety of performers and events. As Tombstone’s mines declined because of flooding, fire, and falling silver prices, the theater changed hands, was renamed the Elite Theatre, and ultimately closed in 1892.

Tombstone, Arizona · United States