Bird Cage Theatre, Theater building in Tombstone, United States

The Bird Cage Theatre is a theater building in Tombstone, Arizona, that served as a stage venue, gaming house, and saloon during the silver mining era. The wooden structure preserves its Victorian-era facades, worn floorboards, and wall panels with visible bullet marks from shootouts.

Lottie and William "Billy" Hutchinson opened the theatre on December 26, 1881, with family shows and a free Ladies Night that Tombstone's mining economy could not sustain. In March 1882 water flooded the Grand Central Mine at 620 feet, and the Hutchinsons sold to Hugh McCrum and John Stroufe; Bignon refurbished it as the Elite Theatre. After the mine's hoist and pumping plant burned on May 26, 1886, and silver fell to 90 cents an ounce, the theatre closed in 1892. It was leased as a coffee shop from 1934.

The name comes from the twelve balcony boxes, likened to bird cages, where prostitutes worked during performances. The theatre opened on 26 December 1881 with a Ladies Night for the respectable women of Tombstone, free of charge; the Hutchinsons soon dropped it for entertainment aimed at the mining crowd. Acts ranged from Mademoiselle De Granville, the "Female Hercules" who lifted weights with her teeth, to Cornish wrestling matches whose results were printed in Britain.

Visitors can walk through three floors of 19th-century exhibits on their own during daylight hours and book specialized evening tours. The wooden stairs and low door frames require some care when moving through the narrow passages.

In the basement, a poker game ran continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from 1881 to 1889. Players paid a $1,000 advance to join; among them were George Hearst, Diamond Jim Brady, Adolphus Busch, Bat Masterson, Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. About $10 million changed hands over those eight years, and the Bird Cage kept ten percent.