 The discovery of water at Tombstone allowed the erection of mill sites there rendering the San Pedro River mill sites superfluous; when the Contention Mine and the silver mines in Tombstone flooded in 1886 and 1887 after the 1887 Sonora earthquake, the mills were forced to shut down, and Contention City suffered a fatal blow.The population began to leave, and the post office shut down on November 26, 1888.Other than a handful of local ranchers, the town was gone by 1890.