Michael Shumacher made his way to Tombstone during his week’s vacation from Scenery Hill, Pa. Wearing a long black beard, biker boots, blue jeans and a black T-shirt, Shumacher meticulously went through racks at the new Harley Davidson Store next to the Silver Nugget on East Allen Street.

As he paid the cashier for five shirts, he explained how he and his riding buddies collect Harley shirts from all over the country.

“When they go places they buy me a T-shirt,” he said. “I’m returning the favor. It’s a long time coming.”

Since it opened Sept. 1, Tombstone Harley Davidson’s owner Steve Goldstein said its biggest draw has been its T-shirts saying, “Tombstone Harley Davidson.”

Goldstein said it took almost two years of negotiations to bring Harley Davidson to Tombstone, but he is proud to welcome the first international corporation to the town.

“The T-shirts are tremendous benefit,” he said. “They are marketing and advertising all over the world at no cost to Tombstone.”

Goldstein’s franchise contract with Harley Davidson gives him exclusive rights to sell the T-shirts. The shop carries 10 different designs that display Tombstone’s most iconic images: mining, toughness and the silhouettes of the Earps and Doc Holliday. They range in price from $28 to $32, and Goldstein said he is working to set up online sales in time for the holiday shopping season.

Sidney J. Levy, professor of marketing at the University of Arizona’s? Eller College of Management, said while combining the brands of Tombstone and Harley Davidson establishes an exclusive market for the town, it is attractive to a niche market, and cannot be counted on to draw a constant and significant stream of tourists.

“But if Tombstone draws in other retailers and recognized names,” he said, “I think Harley Davidson would add some to the sense of vitality that is being created.”

Goldstein’s new store celebrated its grand opening on Oct. 1 with an organized ride of more than 300 bikes from Tucson Harley Davidson to Sierra Vista and Tombstone.

“Biking is as much a way of life to these people as cowboying is for the people who come to play cowboy,” he said.

“Harley dealerships are destinations for guys traveling, and the No. 1 product they purchase is T-shirts,” said Tombstone Harley Davidson salesman Mike Jones. “It’s not uncommon for a Harley guy to have 50 to 100 T-shirts from all over the world.”

The shirts are so popular, in fact, that even Paul Randall, owner of the town’s other biker patchwork and novelty store, Dreamwalkers of Tombstone, bought a shirt from the new store.

“It’s the Harley mystique,” he said. “Right down to your Harley panties for your girlfriend.“

Tombstone has mystique, too. In the 1880s, its cast of characters, entrepreneurs and thugs not only changed the future of the town, their individual stories became microcosms of American identity.

In similar fashion, Harley Davidson’s 1990s renaissance not only snatched the company from the cliff of financial ruin, its effect on popular culture transformed owning Harley into a symbol of patriotism.

Now the town too tough to die and the brand of motorcycle preferred by huge amounts of war veterans have joined forces.

“It is one of those businesses that you think of as symbiotic to the town,” said City Clerk/Manager George Barnes. “Harley Davidson and Tombstone.”

Though Shumacher said he knew about Tombstone Harley Davidson before he came to town, he said he would have visited if the store didn’t exist.

“I guess I’m a fan of all the western flicks, (about Tombstone)” he said.