The Occidental Fire: Tombstone 1888

A jeweler says his watches burned. The town's fire insurance maps say otherwise.

Tombstone, Arizona Territory, January 1889. You are the local agent of a fire insurance company, and the new edition of the town's insurance atlas has just arrived. On your desk sits a claim that has been open for nearly ten months: on the night the Occidental Hotel block burned, jeweler Ezra Lindqvist lost 140 watches. Or so he says.

Compare the 1886 atlas with the 1889 edition, read the file, and decide: should the company pay?

THE MAPS ARE REAL

The two maps in this case are real fire insurance maps of Tombstone, surveyed in July 1886 and January 1889 and held by the Library of Congress. Every building, every handwritten "Sal." and "Jewelry", every color is what the surveyors drew; the scans are only lightened and slightly saturated for home printing. The fire is real too: the 1889 edition marks the Occidental Hotel block as burned. The people, the documents and the crime are fiction, and no real person is accused of anything.

WHAT YOU GET

• Case file, 14 pages, in US Letter and A4: how to play, a one-page guide to reading fire insurance maps, nine period documents (a letter from the general agent, a proof of loss, three statements, a fire company report, a handbill, a hotel register and a trade card), four full-page map plates of Allen Street in 1886 and 1889 printed close to their original size, the adjuster's worksheet, a timeline of the night and upside-down hints
• Sealed solution, 4 pages: every answer with the map detail circled, the whole story, and a scoring table that rates you from Back to the Counting House to Chief Adjuster
• Free prologue, 3 pages: the first question of the case, free to download and share

HOW IT PLAYS

• 1 to 4 players, 60 to 90 minutes, ages 12 and up
• Print at home, in color if you can: the colors of the buildings are evidence
• Solo, or as a group: share out the documents, then gather around the maps
• No app, no account and no internet needed once printed

TRY IT FIRST

Download the free prologue and answer the case's first question on the real 1886 map. If you enjoy reading the town, the full case file is waiting.

CREDITS AND NOTES

Maps: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Sanborn Maps Collection. The Library of Congress states that the content of this online collection is in the public domain and free to use and reuse. This game is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Library of Congress.
Historic insurance maps sometimes describe people with period terms that are offensive today. The excerpts in this case were framed to leave such labels out.
Written and designed with AI tools. Every map fact used in the case was read twice, independently, on the original scans.
Story, documents and design © 2026 DL Solutions.