Shootout at the OK Corral - Oct 26, 1881 - HISTORY.com This Day in History: 10/26/1881 - Shootout at the OK Corral In this "This Day in History" video clip learn about different events that have occurred on October 26th. Some of the events include the last case of small pox and the first baboon to human heart transplant. Also, the Patriot Act was passed and the Earps had their showdown at the OK Corral. Lead Story Shootout at the OK Corral Share this: Shootout at the OK Corral Author Shootout at the OK Corral URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest.

Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral. On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills. Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder.

A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994). Related Videos October 26 1881 Gunfight at the OK Corral | Craig Hill Training Services Craig Hill Training Services Business, Management and ESL Trainer Search Filed Under Billy Clanton , Doc Holliday , History , Ike Clanton , Old West , Tom McLaury , Tombstone , Virgil Earp , Wyatt Earp On October 26th 1881, the Earp brothers faced off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest.

Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral. On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday . Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps.Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street.The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills. Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder.

A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalised in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994). This Day In History: October 26, 1881 Shootout at the OK Corral | D. K. Smith | Amen 940 This Day In History: October 26, 1881 Shootout at the OK Corral 1 year ago share On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest.

Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers. In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral. On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge.

Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired. Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills. Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder.

A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone (1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994). D.K. Smith is an ordained minister and former Pastor of a local church. When it comes to Gospel Music, D.K. has his pulse on the music. During the drive time home, his motto is "I'll take you home in style with a smile." One thing you can depend on - DK will put a smile on your face and a song in your heart. Just as a candle can light up a dark room, your world can be a little brighter when you allow the music to minister to your soul, after all Gospel music is the real "Soul Music." So enjoy your afternoons with "The PM Pastor" he's got the hook up for music and ministry! Contact Gunfight at the O.K. Corral | World History Project Oct 26 1881 3:00PM Gunfight at the O.K.

Corral The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a gunfight that occurred at about 3 P.M. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, United States. The famous gunfight did not actually occur at the O.K. Corral. It occurred in a fifteen- to twenty-foot space between Fly's Lodging House and photographic studio, and the MacDonald assay house west of it. The end of the gunfight took place in Fremont Street. Some of the fighting was in Fremont Street in front of the vacant lot. About thirty shots were fired in thirty seconds. Although only three men were killed during the gunfight, it is generally regarded as the most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West, even though many other gunfights of the period resulted in more people killed (e.g., the Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight, the Going Snake Massacre, the Hot Springs Gunfight, and the Gunfight at Hide Park). The gunfight at the O.K. Corral has been portrayed in numerous Western films.

It has come to symbolize the struggle between law-and-order and open-banditry and rustling in frontier towns of the Old West, where law enforcement was often weak or simply nonexistent. In other views, the fight was a more complex embodiment of some of the tensions of the American Civil War of a generation before. One group of fighters represented rural Democrats from Texas who were involved in the cattle-trade in a remote area of Arizona territory which had been desert just a few years before. The other faction (the Earps) had come from the East with the frontier, and represented the very different city interests of Yankee Republican capitalists and businessmen who were attempting to manage a silver-mining boom-town with Eastern expectations of behavior. The gunfight occurred on the physical border of these two cultures. The proximate cause of the conflict that led up to the fight was the arrest by Virgil Earp, acting in his capacity as deputy federal marshal, of two rural “cowboys” for a stagecoach robbery. Drunken threats made by another cowboy against the Earps set them on guard, and when family and friends of the drunken man arrived in town on horseback the next day fully-armed, there was a misunderstanding about how and where they should disarm according to city law.

Within hours, both new arrivals were dead, as also was a Cowboy standing with them, who had illegally failed to surrender his pistol the previous day. Law enforcement (the three Earp brothers and "Doc" Holliday) were eventually exonerated of the killings, but later assassinations and assassination attempts against the Earps over the next six months led to a series of killings and retributions, often with federal and county lawmen supporting different sides of the conflict. The series of battles, known as the Earp Vendetta Ride, finally ended with Virgil Earp permanently crippled by gunfire and his brother Morgan killed. The Earps and Holliday were also forced to flee the territory to Colorado and California, never to return to Arizona. Source: Wikipedia Added by: Brian Hand WARFARE OF THE EARPS AND CLANTONS Undoubtedly the most notorious episode of Tombstone's early history occurred October 26, 1881. The Clanton gang of cowboys had refused to recognize the local supremacy of the Earps, and there was bad blood between the factions.

On the night of October 25, Ike Clanton, a prominent, though decidedly not plucky, member of the cowboy faction, had been arrested by City Marshal Virgil Earp and had been fined $50 for disorderly conduct, which appears to have been merely in objecting to the marshal's abuse. On the morning of the 26th of the Clanton gang in Tombstone were Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, Billy Clanton and Ike Clanton. They had appreciated the intimation that Tombstone was unhealthy for them and had saddled their horses to leave for their home ranch in the Babocomari Mountains. The horses were in the O. K. Corral, which fronted on two streets. Fearing trouble, they planned to leave by the rear gate, on Fremont Street. Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury were not armed, for both the evening before had had their pistols taken from them by the city authorities. The other two had revolvers. The men were leading their horses out of the gate when they were confronted, almost from ambush, by four of the Earps, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan and Jim, and by Doc Holliday.

Virgil Earp, armed with a sawed-off express shotgun, and accompanying his demand with profanity, yelled, "Throw up your hands." But he didn't wait for the action demanded and shot almost as soon as he spoke. Tom McLaury showed his empty hands and cried, "Gentlemen, I am unarmed." Holliday answered with the discharge of his shotgun. Billy Clanton fell at the first fire, mortally wounded, but rolled over and fired two shots from his pistol between his bent knees. One shot "creased" Morgan Earp across the shoulder and he fell to the ground. Ike Clanton ran into a vacant lot and escaped. Frank McLaury remained, fighting bravely, and, holding his horse by the bridle, fired four shots at the three Earps in front of him. One bullet hit Virgil Earp in the calf of the leg. McLaury became aware that Holliday was shooting at him from the rear and had turned to answer the fire when his pistol hand was hit. He then raised his revolver with both hands and shot, striking Holliday's pistol holster.

At the same moment Morgan Earp rolled over and shot from the ground, his bullet striking McLaury on the temple, killing him instantly. The Earps and Holliday then marched back to the main part of the town and surrendered themselves. They were examined behind closed doors by Justice of the Peace Spicer, who discharged them as having acted as peace officers in the performance of their duty. Thereafter Virgil Earp received a bad wound in the arm, shot one night by some unknown person concealed in a building. Soon after, Morgan Earp was killed in an Allen Street saloon, about 9 p. m., while playing billiards, his assassin shooting through a rear glass door, himself hidden in the darkness. The murderer was supposed to have been Frank Stillwell, a cowboy of the outlaw stripe. If it were Stillwell who did the shooting, he established a reasonable alibi by being in Tucson early the next morning. Ike Clanton already was in Tucson, under arrest for a stage robbery on the road between Tucson and Bisbee. A few days later, the Earps, Holliday and one Johnson, started for California in charge of Morgan Earp's body. The train, taken at Benson, arrived in Tucson about dusk.

Ike Clanton, out on bail, learning of the presence of his enemies, secreted himself, but Stillwell, possibly to maintain his attitude of innocence, went to the depot and walked slowly along the train as it was drawing out. The next morning his body, riddled with buckshot, was found at the head of Pennington Street, possibly a hundred yards from the tracks, back of the railroad hotel. It was assumed that one of the Earps had jumped off, shot Stillwell and then regained the train. At Killito station, a few miles westward, all but Virgil Earp left the train. They walked back to Tucson, and, a short distance east of the town, flagged a freight train and on it went to Benson, where they got horses and returned to Tombstone. There Sheriff Behan received a telegram to arrest them. When the sheriff notified them that they were under arrest they directed him to a torrid region, secured fresh horses and rode out of town. They were next heard from in the Dragoon Mountains, where they shot and killed a Mexican who was chopping wood for Pete Spence, one of their mortal enemies, possibly irritated over not finding Spence himself.

Thence they rode to Hooker's Sierra Bonita ranch, where the owner gave them fresh mounts. They rode across country to Silver City, New Mexico, where they disposed of the horses and took a train for Colorado. On hearing of the refuge of the Earp gang, Governor Tritle on May 16, 1882, issued a requisition on Governor Pitkin of Colorado, asking the return of Wyatt and Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, Sherman McMasters and John Johnson, all charged with the crime of murder. The requisition was refused on the grounds that the papers were defective in form and because Holliday already was under indictment for a crime committed in Colorado. June 2, Governor Tritle sent amended papers, to again meet rebuff, Governor Pitkin replying on the ground that he "did not consider it possible for any agent to deliver the parties named in safety to Tucson." Just the character of influence brought upon the governor of Colorado does not appear at this late date. It is probable the people of Tombstone cared little, as the exile of the Earps was the first possible move toward a lasting peace, which then began to be felt.

PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE EARPS AND HOLLIDAY Virgil Earp died of pneumonia, in Goldfield, Nevada, October 19, 1905, aged 63 years, and was buried in Portland, Oregon, where a daughter lived. He had been married twice. Of the flood of reminiscences brought up at the time of his death, much was made public beyond the more notable episode of his Tombstone career. He came to Arizona first in 1876, in company with his brothers, Wyatt and Morgan, and Doc Holliday. While Ed Bowers was sheriff, Prescott was visited by two cowboys from Bradshaw Basin, who enjoyed themselves in true cowboy fashion, shooting up saloons, finally riding out of town firing their pistols as they went. They camped at the Brooks ranch, and sent back word that they would remain in case the sheriff wanted them bad enough. Bowers organized a posse, of which Virgil Earp was a member. In a pitched battle that followed, Earp found one of the cowboys crouched under an oak tree, reloading his gun, and shot him twice, one bullet passing through his heart and the other only about two inches from the first.

It was remarked, when the body was taken away, that between the man's teeth was still a cigarette he had been smoking when shot. The other cowboy also was brought in prostrate, dying two days later. Virgil Earp came back to Arizona, to the scene of his old exploits in Yavapai County, and engaged in mining in the Hassayampa district. In 1900 he was nominated for sheriff, but failed to make the raee. He had seen service in the Civil War in an Indiana regiment of volunteers. Wyatt Earp went to Colton, California, where relatives lived, and where he later was elected chief of police. He was given much publicity in his capacity of referee at the Sharkey-Fitzsimmons fight in San Francisco, in which his decision, awarding the battle to the former, was sustained by his reputation as a handy man with a gun. He was in Nome in its boom period. Holliday died of consumption at Glenwood Springs, Colo.

Warren Earp, the youngest brother, a stage driver, in the summer of 1900 met his end at Willcox, where he was killed by John Boyett in a way that a coroner's jury considered justifiable. In 1882 conditions were so bad in Southeastern Arizona that President Arthur issued a proclamation calling upon bandits to disperse and threatening extermination at the hands of the military authorities and United States marshals. This followed a letter from Acting Governor Gosper to the secretary of the interior calling attention to the seeming inability of the territory to suppress the outlaws. Doc Holliday, the right bower of the Earp clan, possibly best was described by the equally famous Bat Masterson, who was interviewed on the subject, and whose history of the once-distinguished Arizonan, before his local advent, may as well be quoted: I never liked him and few persons did. He had a mean disposition and differed from most of the big gun fighters in that he would seek a fight. He was a consumptive and physically weak, which probably had something to do with his unfortunate disposition. He was of a fine Georgia family and was educated as a dentist.

He went West after shooting down several defenseless negro boys in a quarrel as to who should occupy a certain swimming hole. He made Dallas in the early seventies and hung out his shingle, "J. D. Holliday, Dentist," but he soon quit that for gambling. His shooting of the negroes became known and so he got a reputation as a bad man from the start and associated on equal terms with men of more notable record. He finally killed a man in Jacksboro and fled. Then he killed a soldier, and to avoid being caught by the military authorities made a desperate flight to Denver, across 800 miles of waterless, Indian-infested desert. He made Denver in '76. The law forbade him to carry a gun there, so he slipped a knife into his boot leg and presently carved up the face of one Bud Eyan, who bears the marks to this day. He then fled to Dodge City, where I first met him. He kept out of trouble in Dodge somehow, but presently wandered to Trinidad, Colo., where the first thing he did was to shoot and seriously wound Kid Colton.

Then he escaped to Las Vegas, a boom town in New Mexico, where he disagreed with Mike Gordon and shot him dead in a doorway. In their palmy days and even later the Earps had many friends, generally enemies of the even rougher element that the brothers opposed. It was claimed that in their former abiding place, Dodge City, Kansas, as well as in Tombstone, they were found opposed to the criminal element and that they never killed a man whom the community was not pleased to lose. Especially has been commended their good work in shooting "Curly Bill," who had considered himself well above the law and left to go free after his cold-blooded murder of White, the first city marshal of Tombstone. Such a man as E. B. Gage has been quoted as stating that "Whatever Virgil Earp did in Tombstone was at the request of the best men in Cochise County." Source: ARIZONA Prehistoric - Aboriginal - Pioneer - Modern, by James H.

McClintock, published 1916, Page 481 Added by: Brian Hand More information On this day : The 26th of October 1881 | On this day : The 26th of October 1881 Posted on by OffTheClothBoff Gallery Shootout at the OK Corral On this day in 1881, the Earp brothers face off against the Clanton-McLaury gang in a legendary shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. After silver was discovered nearby in 1877, Tombstone quickly grew into one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest. Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer working as a bank security guard, and his brothers, Morgan and Virgil, the town marshal, represented “law and order” in Tombstone, though they also had reputations as being power-hungry and ruthless. The Clantons and McLaurys were cowboys who lived on a ranch outside of town and sidelined as cattle rustlers, thieves and murderers.

In October 1881, the struggle between these two groups for control of Tombstone and Cochise County ended in a blaze of gunfire at the OK Corral. On the morning of October 25, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury came into Tombstone for supplies. Over the next 24 hours, the two men had several violent run-ins with the Earps and their friend Doc Holliday. Around 1:30 p.m. on October 26, Ike’s brother Billy rode into town to join them, along with Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne. The first person they met in the local saloon was Holliday, who was delighted to inform them that their brothers had both been pistol-whipped by the Earps. Frank and Billy immediately left the saloon, vowing revenge. Around 3 p.m., the Earps and Holliday spotted the five members of the Clanton-McLaury gang in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral, at the end of Fremont Street. The famous gunfight that ensued lasted all of 30 seconds, and around 30 shots were fired.

Though it’s still debated who fired the first shot, most reports say that the shootout began when Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton point-blank in the chest, while Doc Holliday fired a shotgun blast at Tom McLaury’s chest. Though Wyatt Earp wounded Frank McLaury with a shot in the stomach, Frank managed to get off a few shots before collapsing, as did Billy Clanton. When the dust cleared, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were dead, and Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Ike Clanton and Claiborne had run for the hills. Sheriff John Behan of Cochise County, who witnessed the shootout, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. A month later, however, a Tombstone judge found the men not guilty, ruling that they were “fully justified in committing these homicides.” The famous shootout has been immortalized in many movies, including Frontier Marshal (1939), Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957), Tombstone(1993) and Wyatt Earp (1994).

Share this: The Earps shoot it out at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona - Oct 26, 1881 - HISTORY.com The Earps shoot it out at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Share this: The Earps shoot it out at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Author The Earps shoot it out at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona URL Publisher A+E Networks After years of feuding and mounting tensions, on this day in 1881, the “law and order” Earps and the “cowboy” Clanton-McLaurys engage in their world-famous shoot-out near the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, leaving three men dead and three more wounded. Both sides in the conflict were ostensibly looking for revenge for what they perceived as malicious attacks and insults, but on a larger level the conflict revolved around which side would control the fate of Tombstone and Cochise County.

That hot Arizona day, the Earp brothers—Wyatt; Virgil, the town marshal; and Morgan—along with their friend Doc Holliday, spotted a group of cattle rustlers—Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne, at the other end of Fremont Street, standing in a vacant lot behind the OK Corral. Standing nearby was Cochise County Sheriff John Behan, who rushed up the street to tell the Earps that the Clantons and McLaurys were mostly unarmed and just wanted to leave town peacefully. But the Earps ignored the sheriff and moved ahead to confront their enemies. “You sons of bitches,” Wyatt Earp reportedly said, “you re looking for a fight and now you can have it.” The question of which side actually drew their guns first is still debated today, but it s believed that Virgil Earp pulled out his revolver and shot Billy Clanton in the chest at point-blank range, while Doc Holliday killed Tom McLaury with a blast from his double-barreled shotgun. Wyatt Earp shot Frank McLaury in the stomach, and the wounded man staggered out into the street but managed to pull his gun and return fire.

Meanwhile, Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne ran for their lives. The wounded Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton both managed to get off several shots before collapsing, and Virgil, Morgan, and Doc were all hit. But when the 30-second gunfight was over, there was no doubt which side had triumphed: the Earps were bloodied but alive, while Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury were dead or dying. Sheriff Behan, who witnessed the entire shoot-out, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. However, a month later the Tombstone justice of the peace found the men not guilty, ruling “the defendants were fully justified in committing these homicides.” Related Videos O.K. Corral: A Gunfight Shrouded in Mystery By Casey Tefertiller and Jeff Morey Cowboy Billy Clanton still lay dying, his face contorted with pain, when the press began the difficult task of piecing together the details of an October 1881 street battle in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. In later years it would become known as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

Richard Rule, veteran city editor of the Tombstone Nugget, helped carry Clanton into the house where the young man would pass into history, then returned to the streets to go to work. With the canny eye of an experienced newsman, Rule began collecting the details of the gunfight, interviewing witnesses and trying to get a handle on what transpired during that fateful half minute and what led up to the battle. It would be a model of frontier journalism and vital to future understanding of perhaps the most debated event of the American frontier. The saga of the O.K. Corral has been told repeatedly and from many perspectives, often with fictional intrusions and biased analysis. Now, for the first time in 120 years, we may have an authentic understanding of the events that led to the gunfight and what actually occurred in the streets of Tombstone — with a great deal of help from Richard Rule. Read More in Wild West Magazine Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!! Through the tense summer of 1881, emotions had grown explosive.

Bands of rustlers roamed the backcountry, stealing cattle mostly in Mexico or from Mexican ranchers in Arizona and New Mexico territories and then selling them to apparently legitimate ranchers for resale. The Clanton and McLaury families owned ranches reputed to be headquarters for receiving stolen cattle. This great cattle scam drew little ire from an American population more interested in acquiring wealth in the rich new mining areas than investigating international relations. In addition, Mexico had assessed high taxes on alcohol and tobacco, and smugglers came to southern Arizona Territory to purchase the goods cheaply for resale south of the border. The cash- and jewel-laden smugglers provided an easy target for American bandits. As that fateful year of 1881 progressed, the situation changed. The Mexican government dropped taxes on alcohol and tobacco and then lodged numerous protests with federal and territorial officials to try to stop the outlawry against Mexican citizens. Territorial Governor John C. Frémont, the old pathfinder and the first Republican presidential candidate in 1856, suggested in February that the territorial Legislature fund a state militia to ride against the outlaws and stop the rustling. Legislators hooted down the visionary plan.

The Mexican government built a series of forts along the border and began to fight back against the American outlaws. American rustlers George Turner and Alfred McAllister were killed in Mexico during a raid on May 13. Back on the U.S. side of the border, citizens also began to grow agitated over outlawry, particularly because of what happened on March 15. Three robbers that day attempted to intercept a stagecoach traveling from Tombstone to Benson, Arizona Territory. Driver Eli ‘Budd’ Philpot and passenger Peter Roerig were killed. Jim Crane, William Leonard and Harry Head were identified as the robbers. With Frémont’s militia plan discarded, there was little to counter the rustling and other crimes that gripped southern Arizona Territory. Cochise County Sheriff John Behan and his deputies were charged with battling the rustlers, who became known as the ‘Cowboys.’ But Behan was at best ineffective and at worst crooked. His deputy Billy Breakenridge would tell how he deputized Cowboy leader ‘Curly Bill’ Brocius (or ‘Curley Bill’ Brocious) and used him to help collect taxes.

And Wells, Fargo detective James Hume was quoted as saying, ‘Even the sheriff of the county?is in with the cowboys and he has got to be or his life would not be worth a farthing.’ The federal government was represented by U.S. Deputy Marshals Virgil Earp and Leslie Blackburn, with Earp in charge of most of the fieldwork, backed by his brother and deputy Wyatt Earp. Virgil also served as city marshal of Tombstone, which left Wyatt with most of the federal work. Wyatt Earp coveted Behan’s well-paid job as sheriff, and the election would be coming up in the fall of 1882. According to Wyatt, he tried to make a deal with Frank McLaury and Ike Clanton, the most visible of the Clanton brothers and a known friend of the rustling crowd, to tell him the whereabouts of the three stage robbers. This would bolster Earp’s chances in the election, and Ike would receive the reward. Before the deal could be completed, two bartender brothers killed Leonard and Head in a remote New Mexico Territory mining village. An army of Cowboys rode down and killed the brothers in retribution.

In August, another cattle raid in Mexico caused Commandant Felipe Neri to dispatch troops to the border, where they found a group of Americans bedded down on the U.S. side of the crossing at Guadalupe Canyon. The Mexicans crept the few feet across the border and opened fire, killing five, among them stage robber Jim Crane and Newman Clanton, scion of the Clanton clan, who left behind sons Ike, Fin and Billy. With no deal left for him, Ike Clanton grew increasingly worried. Wyatt Earp knew Ike had made a deal to turn on his Cowboy buddies, information that could have ruined Ike’s standing in the rustling community. With the borders closed, outlawry against Americans grew more commonplace in the backcountry. The Earps emerged as the leading law officers, taking an aggressive stand against the region’s criminal elements. The Cowboys resented their actions. ‘They met at Charleston and took an oath over blood drawn from the arm of John Ring[o], the leader, that they would kill us,’ Virgil Earp said. With emotion running stronger than the best saloon whiskey, Ike Clanton came to Tombstone to confront Wyatt Earp and learn whether Earp had been leaking the secret.

According to Earp, Ike accused him of telling the secret to his friend John Henry ‘Doc’ Holliday, a heavy-drinking dentist with a quirky sense of humor. Earp denied the accusation and sent for Holliday, who was in Tucson. Holliday met with Clanton on the night of October 25 in the Occidental Saloon. By the Earp account, Holliday was angry that Clanton had made a false accusation against him. As Ike told it, Holliday called him a ‘damned liar [who] had threatened the Earps….He told me to pull out my gun and if there was any grit in me, to go to fighting.’ Clanton, who was unarmed, said that Holliday ordered him to retrieve his gun. Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp appeared to break up the fight, with Wyatt walking Holliday back to his room at Fly’s lodging house. Then came perhaps the most improbable event of the day. Ike Clanton, after retrieving his six-shooter, sat down to a poker game with Virgil Earp, Tom McLaury, John Behan and one other player.

It would be like ‘Ike’ Eisenhower pitching pennies with Adolf Hitler before the Battle of the Bulge. The game broke up around 7 a.m., with Ike Clanton requesting that Virgil deliver a message to Holliday: ‘The damned son of a bitch has got to fight,’ Ike supposedly told Virgil. Virgil said he responded: ‘Ike, I am an officer, and I don?t want to hear you talking that way at all. I am going down home now to go to bed, and I don?t want you to raise any disturbance when I am in bed.”You won?t carry a message?’ Ike asked. Virgil said he would not. ‘You may have to fight before you know it,’ Ike said as Virgil walked away. Through the rest of the morning, Ike fueled his anger with whiskey, lurching from saloon to saloon to talk tough and make threats against the Earps. ‘He said that as soon as the Earps and Doc Holliday showed themselves on the street, the ball would open and that they would have to fight,’ said Ned Boyle, bartender at the Oriental Saloon, who went to awaken Wyatt and tell him of the threat.

Deputy Marshal Andy Bronk also heard of the threats and woke Virgil. Injudiciously, both Wyatt and Virgil went back to sleep and ignored Ike’s ire. About noon on the 26th, Virgil and Morgan Earp spotted Ike carrying a six-shooter and a rifle. Virgil crashed his revolver into Ike’s head, then led the bloodied Cowboy to Judge Albert O. Wallace’s courtroom. Wyatt Earp entered the room and said: ‘You damn dirty cow thief. You have been threatening our lives, and I know it. I think I would be justified in shooting you down any place I would meet you. But if you are anxious to make a fight, I will go anywhere on earth to make a fight with you — even over to San Simon among your crowd.’ ‘Fight is my racket, and all I want is 4 feet of ground,’ Clanton responded. ‘If you fellows had been a second later, I would have furnished a Coroner’s Inquest for this town.’ Morgan Earp held up Ike’s gun and taunted him, saying he would pay the fine if Ike would make a fight. Ike refused, saying he did not like the odds.

Wallace fined Ike $25 for carrying firearms in the city limits. As Wyatt stepped out of the courtroom, he encountered Tom McLaury and engaged in an argument that led to Earp slapping the cowboy with his left hand, then beating him over the head with a six-shooter. Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton rode into town and stopped at the saloon in the Grand Hotel. Cowboy pal Billy Claiborne told them of the beatings delivered to their brothers, and Frank dropped his whiskey glass without taking a sip. As the afternoon continued, the town grew more and more agitated, buzzing with trepidation that a conflict was brewing. The Earps congregated at the corner of Fourth and Allen, in front of Hafford’s Corner Saloon, and watched as Ike and Billy Clanton, along with Frank McLaury, entered Spangenberg’s gun shop. Frank and Billy purchased ammunition, but the proprietor refused to sell a gun to Ike. The Clantons and McLaurys left the gun shop and split up. The McLaurys went off to make collections for cattle they had sold, while Claiborne and Billy Clanton went to retrieve Billy’s horse.

They would meet up again a few minutes later, at the O.K. Corral, where witnesses would overhear them making threats against the Earps. Back at Hafford’s, townsmen came to the Earps offering assistance and telling of the cowboy threats. City Marshal Virgil Earp said he asked Sheriff Behan to assist him in disarming the Cowboys. Instead, Behan offered to go down and talk to the Clantons and McLaurys to see if he could peaceably disarm them by himself. After Virgil had waited nearly 20 minutes for Behan to make his talk, local businessman John Fonck came to tell the marshal of the Cowboys? actions. Virgil said he would not interfere if they were getting their horses and leaving town, but if they were armed and walking the streets he would have to arrest them. ‘Why,’ Fonck responded, ‘they are all down on Fremont Street now.’ Read More in Wild West Magazine Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!! Virgil Earp turned to his two brothers, and to Holliday. He handed a short-barreled shotgun to Holliday to conceal under his long gray coat.

Holliday then gave his walking stick to the marshal, and the four began the fateful walk that would become part of history. As they strode down Fremont Street, Behan rushed up to them and, according to the Earp brothers, said, ‘For God’s sake, don?t go down there or you will get yourself murdered.’ Virgil replied that he was going to disarm them. What the sheriff said next is uncertain. Behan would say that he told the Earps, ‘I was there for the purpose of arresting and disarming them.’ The Earps believed the sheriff said he had already disarmed them, and they then — apparently disregarding the warning that they would get murdered — made the mistake of relaxing a little. Wyatt Earp put his six-shooter back in his coat pocket; Virgil shifted his six-shooter off his hip into a more difficult position to draw and held the walking stick in his right hand. When they arrived at the 15-foot-wide vacant lot on Fremont Street where the Cowboys had congregated, the Earps were surprised to see that at least two of the opposition — Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton — still carried revolvers, and rifles were visible on the horses.

Virgil raised his walking stick and growled, ‘Throw up your hands, boys, I intend to disarm you.’ The shooting began quickly. Two shots, a pause, then the gunfight burst out on different fronts. Holliday surged forward to stalk Tom McLaury, partially hidden by a horse, then fired a shotgun charge into McLaury’s chest. At about the same moment, Ike lurched forward to grab Wyatt Earp. Clanton said he heroically tried to push him out of the way. Earp said he told Ike, ‘The fight has commenced, get to fighting or get away.’ Ike, whose mouth had aroused the town and inflamed the Earps, then dashed from the scene. Virgil took a shot through the calf, most likely from Frank McLaury’s six-shooter. Billy Clanton took a bullet in the chest, probably from Morgan, then a shot in the right wrist. He switched gun hands, leaned back against a building and slowly crumpled to the ground as he continued firing. Morgan stumbled and fell, yelling, ‘I am hit,’ as a bullet entered one shoulder blade and passed out through the other.

He rose, but soon fell again, probably tripping on a mound on Fremont Street where the town was putting in new water pipes. Badly wounded, Frank McLaury tried to use his horse for cover as he lurched into the street. He fired at Morgan, causing his horse to bolt. Unprotected and exhausted, Frank squatted in the street, but when Holliday pursued him, Frank stood, aimed and said, ‘I?ve got you now.’ ‘Blaze away. You?re a daisy if you have,’ Holliday responded, according to the Nugget. McLaury fired, grazing Holliday’s side. ‘I?m shot right through,’ Holliday yelled. Frank McLaury staggered farther into the street as Morgan Earp and Doc both fired, Morgan’s shot crashing into the right side of McLaury’s head, Holliday’s into the Cowboy’s chest. McLaury continued to breathe as Holliday ran up and shouted, ‘The son of a bitch has shot me, and I mean to kill him!’ But it was too late. The fight had been shot out of Frank McLaury.

His brother Tom had made it to the corner of Third and Fremont, where he lay dying at the base of a telegraph pole. Frank died in the street. Tom and Billy were carried into a nearby house, where they would survive for only minutes. With Morgan and Virgil Earp both wounded and Holliday grazed across the side, Wyatt Earp remained the only participant standing, untouched by lead. Behan strode over to Wyatt and said, ‘I will have to arrest you.’ A witness recalled Earp’s reply: ‘I won?t be arrested. You deceived me, Johnny, you told me they were not armed. I won?t be arrested, but I am here to answer what I have done. I am not going to leave town.’ And Earp was not arrested — not then, at least. Almost immediately, journalist Richard Rule and his rivals at the Epitaph began scurrying to collect the news. Both stories were dramatic, colorful and tinged with blood. In the style of the day, they did not present many direct quotes, instead making journalists? assessments of the material. By the Epitaph report, the battle began when two Cowboys pulled their guns and fired the first two shots.

The Nugget had it different, saying Frank McLaury made a motion for his gun, which prompted Wyatt Earp to quickly draw and shoot McLaury. Both stories led to a belief that the law officers had been in the right. Within 48 hours, the situation would change dramatically. As the coroner’s inquest began, well-liked Sheriff Behan, along with Ike Clanton, Claiborne and several Cowboy friends, testified to a much different beginning to the gunfight. They would report that the Earp party fired the first several shots of the conflict. Clanton filed murder charges against the Earps, and a month-long preliminary hearing began at which both sides would air their versions of the events. By the Earp version, it was self-defense; by the Cowboy account, it was murder. Behan would serve as the most significant witness for the prosecution, which tried to have the Earps bound over for a murder trial. Key witnesses at the hearing in advancing the Cowboy version were Wesley Fuller, Billy Allen, Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne, who was under a murder indictment himself for an unrelated incident.

They laid out a dramatic story of how at Virgil’s command the two Clantons and Frank McLaury thrust their arms in the air to comply, while Tom McLaury threw open his vest to show he was unarmed. Immediately someone from the Earp party screamed, ‘You sons of bitches have been looking for a fight, and now you can have one!’ Barely had those words sounded when two shots were fired, the first from Doc Holliday’s nickel-plated revolver and the other from another member of the Earp party, probably Morgan. After a pause, the Earps got off several shots before Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton could pull their six-shooters and return fire. Tom McLaury was never armed and never fired. This image of men shot down in the act of surrendering would shock the community as reports appeared in the local press. Wyatt and Virgil Earp would present a much different story. Wyatt would say the fight began after Virgil’s call to disarm: ‘Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury laid their hands on their six-shooters. Virgil said, ?Hold, I don?t mean that. I have come to disarm you.?

They — Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury — commenced to draw their pistols. At that moment Tom McLaury threw his hand to his right hip and jumped behind a horse. I had my pistol in my overcoat pocket where I had put it when Behan told us he had disarmed the other party. When I saw Billy and Frank draw their pistols, I drew my pistol. Billy Clanton leveled his pistol at me but I didn?t aim at him. I knew that Frank McLaury had the reputation of being a good shot and a dangerous man, and I aimed at Frank McLaury. The two first shots which were fired were fired by Billy Clanton and myself; he shot at me, and I shot at Frank McLaury. I do not know which shot was first. We fired almost together.’ Neither Wyatt nor Virgil Earp mentioned the statement about the SOBs looking for a fight and getting one. By the Earp version, the fight began in self-defense when the Cowboys, armed in violation of law, made an aggressive move in defiance of a legal order.

The Earp version closely reflected the Nugget‘s report of the gunfight, while the Cowboy story was in stark contrast to the immediate reporting after the event.When the preliminary hearing ended on December 1, Justice Wells Spicer ruled the case not be bound over for trial. This was decision without exoneration, as most of the key questions were left undetermined. Spicer ruled that there was not enough evidence to assure a likelihood of conviction. The Cochise County Grand Jury would later reopen the issue and concur with Spicer. The debate has raged on for 120 years as to who fired first. The quest for a true understanding of events has been confused by a series of later writers advancing inaccurate or simply false information from supposed secret sources. Stuart Lake, in his classic Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, stated flatly that the Cowboys drew and fired on the Earps, which is contradictory to the Earps? own version in the Spicer hearing. Frank Waters, in The Earp Brothers of Tombstone, quoted alleged eyewitnesses who were never called to testify in saying the Earps fired first at surrendering Cowboys. It has since been discovered that Waters tampered with material in the book, diminishing its credibility.

The issue seemed resolved in 1976 when Glenn G. Boyer’s I Married Wyatt Earp appeared, asserting that Josephine Earp, Wyatt’s third wife, had secret information that Doc Holliday had actually fired the first shot and that Earp lied in the Spicer hearing to cover for his friend. However, Boyer has since admitted that this book is not actually Mrs. Earp’s memoir but rather a creative exercise. Boyer further confused the issue with his 1993 Wyatt Earp’s Tombstone Vendetta, in which he now claimed Holliday told a confidant that Earp himself fired the first two shots so quickly they sounded as one. Four years later, Boyer acknowledged that this was also novelistic.The fictional and fantastic later writings must be discarded in order to gain an understanding of what actually occurred on that dusty street on October 26, 1881. By returning to the original sources, we can finally gain a grasp of what started the gunfight that refuses to die. The Behan/Cowboy version of the initial gunfire is based on the first shot being fired from Holliday’s revolver at the surrendering Clantons and McLaurys.

For this to be accurate, Holliday would have needed to stage a sort of juggling act, firing the revolver, then going to the shotgun to shoot Tom McLaury, discarding the shotgun and returning to the revolver as he chased Frank McLaury into Fremont Street. And he would need to have done it without either the witnesses or survivors seeing it. Behan claimed to have his eyes fixed on the Earp party, and the other pro-Cowboy witnesses testified that the Clantons and McLaurys were lifting their hands to surrender. However, Addie Bourland, a dressmaker watching from her shop across the street, testified that she clearly saw that none of the Cowboys had their hands in the air.Behan’s credibility would emerge as an issue late in the Spicer hearing. Deputy district attorney Winfield Scott Williams testified that the sheriff had inaccurately depicted a conversation with Virgil Earp after the gunfight in which, according to Williams, Behan told Virgil that one of the Cowboys had drawn his gun to start the fight. Equally important, documents were located in 1997 showing that Behan served as guarantor of a loan to Ike Clanton during the Spicer hearing.

With Wyatt Earp seeking Behan’s job in the next election, the sheriff had much to gain from seeing his rival face a murder charge. And then there is Richard Rule. It is one of those flukes of history that the Nugget story ever appeared as it did. Publisher Harry Woods also served as Behan’s undersheriff, but he was off in El Paso fetching a prisoner at the time of the gunfight. This left the talented and experienced Rule to oversee the newsgathering and writing of a story that would be essentially pro-Earp. With the Nugget‘s connections to the sheriff’s office, it would be logical to seek out Behan as a source for the story. What makes this even more probable is that the Nugget story, without attribution, states, ‘The Sheriff stepped out and said: ?Hold up boys, don?t go down there or there will be trouble; I have been down there to disarm them.?’ Behan would repeatedly insist he told the Earps that he had been down to disarm the cowboys, not that he had actually done the disarming. The article relates details of the conversation Behan had had with the Cowboys.

The story further states that Behan ‘was standing near by commanding the contestants to cease firing but was powerless to prevent it’ — a claim that sounds as if it came from Behan’s own mouth. It is hard to imagine the Nugget not interviewing Behan for this story. By Williams? account, immediately after the gunfight, Behan told Virgil Earp a story similar to the Nugget report before changing his story at the coroner’s inquest. For the Behan/Cowboy version of the first shots to be true, Doc Holliday would have had to orchestrate an incredible revolver-shotgun-revolver shuffle, an officer of the court would have had to lie under oath and both the Nugget and Epitaph would have had to have missed the biggest story of their existences. This remarkable chain of events is so unlikely as to render it unbelievable. The OK Corral, Tombstone, Arizona is located 70 miles from Tucson Arizona, a must see for old west history buffs. The site of the famous shootout, this old west town has much to do and see. Site of the infamous gun battle between Wyatt Earp and the Clanton's it is a fantastic place full of history.

With five museums and daily gunfights, this old west town takes the visitor back to the 1880's and the life and times of Wyatt Earp and his lawmen companions. Life size figures of lawman Earp and Doc Holliday stand in the exact position they were in on October 26, 1881. With gunfights three times a day, a great place to get the feel of the old west. Also in Tombstone, is The Tombstone Epitaph newspaper office, oldest newspaper office in the west, with the original printing press there on display. The fantastic history comes to life here at the OK Corral. With Tombstone's humble beginnings as a silver mining town, one can see historic blacksmiths at work and enjoy horse-drawn wagon rides through town. With many old photographs of Geronimo, and a tour of Doc Holliday's hotel room, Tombstone has it all for one interested in the old west and the gunfight that made Wyatt Earp famous. When in Tucson, Arizona a great place to visit is the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.

Here in the town the old west comes alive, with daily shows every 30 minutes and exciting exhibits on display Search:

Question: October 26th, 1881, was the famous shootout at the OK Corral. In what Arizona town was it located?
Answer: Tombstone, Az