Heading north on Fifth Street, one is sure to run into an old swimming pool at the bottom of the hill — an oasis in the desert to the early day populace of Tombstone.

Tombstone Municipal Pool was originally built in 1883 and claims the title of the oldest continuously used swimming pool in the southwest, said Nancy Sosa, a historical researcher who grew up in Tombstone.

The swimming pool in Tombstone is even older than a pool in Austin, Texas that is listed as a historic landmark on the National Register of Historic Places. The pool — known as Deep Eddy Pool — was not built until 1915 and was not opened to the public until 1936, according to the pool’s Web site.

In its October meeting, the Historic District Commission decided to make the swimming pool its own historic district, said Don Taylor, a member of the commission and manager of the O.K. Corral.

“We want to make sure that we protect that area and keep it from any development or changes,” Taylor said. “Hopefully we will be able to get grant money for the its preservation.”

Patrick Green, chairman of the Historic District Commission, said the benefit of making the Tombstone Municipal Pool or any other historic site its own historic district would be to keep someone from buying the property and tearing it down.

Due to the pool’s historic nature, Sosa said it is important to make it an individually recognized site.

“It’s an original structure,” Sosa said. “That makes it a historical site, a historical structure.”

The pool was built by A.J. Mitchell — a famous surveyor who had worked for royalty in England — and C.N. Pring, Sosa said. By 1909, it fell off the radar. Due to the pool being located at the bottom of a hill, it was filled in by dirt and debris from floodwaters.

In 1924, a group called the Luncheon Club found and repaired Tombstone Municipal Pool. It was reopened in August of that same year, Sosa said. When they removed the dirt and clutter from the pool the only thing that needed repairs was the wall that people sit on, but the actual structure of the pool was fine.

According to a book written by Sosa, Tombstone: A Quick History, Tombstone’s pool even broke the norm of the time period by allotting specific days for women to swim. According to an ad in an 1883 issue of The Tombstone Epitaph., their allotted times were Wednesday and Saturday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

In the 21st century swimming pools are a regular commodity, however, back in Tombstone’s early days pools were a rarity, Sosa said.

“Swimming pools were a big deal in the 1800s, especially in the West,” Sosa said. “It was a complete luxury to have a swimming pool in your community, just like it was a luxury to have an indoor skating rink back East.”

The Tombstone Municipal Pool was the first known pool that wasn’t a pond in the state during that time. Other pools were not made for many more years, Sosa said.

“To us, the people that grew up here, and that’s the only pool we have ever known, we all learned how to swim there. It makes a difference to actually know the history about it,” Sosa said.

“We look at it now as ‘why does it matter’. To them it was a big deal.”