“I’m your huckleberry.” Oh, the shivers those words still give me more than three decades after Val Kilmer oozed them as John Henry “Doc” Holliday in 1993’s Tombstone . Even when depicting the tuberculosis that was wrecking the gunslinger’s body, Kilmer made that line sing — and slickly felled Doc’s enemies to boot.
After the Arizona events recounted in the movie, the real-life Doc headed to Colorado and, in May 1887, landed in Glenwood Springs where he hoped the purported healing powers of the mountain town’s famous hot springs would mend his infected body. Alas, he was too far gone and soon fell into a coma, dying at age 36 in his room at the Hotel Glenwood on Nov. 8, 1887.
The hotel would burn in 1945 and today, next to the Doc Holliday Saloon, family-owned western wear store Bullocks (lasso your hats, boots and clothing here!) pays homage to the legend. Tucked in the basement behind shirts emblazoned with “I’m your huckleberry” is a room showcasing the Doc Holliday, Life, Legend and Lore collection by the Glenwood Springs Historical Society. Among the items — which include memorabilia from pop culture like an autographed movie still from Kilmer and actual time-period artifacts such as the gun Doc’s girlfriend Big Nose Kate gave him — is a pocket watch that a mourning Wyatt Earp had engraved after Doc’s death but was only recently discovered.
As for Doc, word is he was buried at Linwood Cemetery, accessible by a short — yet steep and sce.