QuoteDoc Holliday died of tuberculosis on 8th November, 1887.
Here is a small part from Legends of America
about the last days of Doc Holliday.
"Holliday’s health continued to deteriorate. As a realist, Doc was not one to believe in miraculous cures, but hoping that the Yampah hot springs and sulfur vapors might improve his health, he headed for Glenwood Springs, Colorado in May, 1887. Registering at the fashionable Hotel Glenwood, he grew steadily worse, spending his last fifty-seven days in bed at the hotel and was delirious fourteen of them.
Hotel Glenwood 1900
On November 8, 1887, he awoke clear-eyed and asked for a glass of whiskey. It was given to him and he drank it down with enjoyment. Then, looking down at his bare feet he said, "This is funny", and died. He always figured he would be killed with his boots on.
Doc Holliday had come West years before, knowing his days were numbered. He never believed that he would die in bed. He often said that his end would come from lead poisoning, at the end of a rope, a knife in his ribs, or that he might drink himself to death.
His obituary, appearing in the Leadville Carbonate Chronicle on November 14, 1887, stated the following:
"There is scarcely one in the country who had acquired a greater notoriety than Doc Holliday, who enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most fearless men on the frontier, and whose devotion to his friends in the climax of the fiercest ordeal was inextinguishable. It was this, more than any other faculty that secured for him the reverence of a large circle who were prepared on the shortest notice to rally to his relief.”
The Glenwood Springs cemetery sits high upon a steep hill overlooking the valley below. But at the time of his death, the steep road was too icy so they buried him at the bottom of the hill with the intention of moving his body when the ice thawed. But, they never did. Many years later, a housing development was built at the base of the hill and though a marker sits in the cemetery, his actual remains are probably buried in someone’s back yard.
Doc Holliday claimed he almost lost his life a total of nine times. Four attempts were made to hang him and he was shot at five times.
How many men Holliday killed is unknown."
© Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, updated January, 2010.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-docholliday6.html
Compiled by Flaca
