October 26, 1881: The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

October 26, 1881: The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is fought in Tombstone, Arizona Territory.

While the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday were no angels -- by the standards of the time, the Earps were a lot like a Mob family (just as Henry McCarty, a.k.a. William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, killed in the New Mexico Territory earlier that year, was essentially a hitman) -- the Clanton Gang, a.k.a. "The Cowboys," was worse. So if there were any "good guys" in this fight, it was the Earps.

The participants:

First, on the side of the law:

* Virgil Earp, 38, from Pella, Iowa, Town Marshal of Tombstone.

* Wyatt Earp, 33, appointed a Special Policeman by his brother.

* Morgan Earp, 30, also appointed a Special Policeman by brother Virgil.

* Dr. John Henry Holliday, 30, from Griffin, Georgia, a dentist, so "Doc" wasn't just a nickname. Also appointed a Special Policeman.

Doc Holliday

And, on the side of "The Cowboys":

* Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton, 34, from Fulton, Missouri.

* Billy Clanton, 19, Ike's brother.

* Frank McLaury, 32, from Belle Plaine, Iowa.

* Tom McLaury, 28, Frank's brother.

* Billy Claiborne, 21, from somewhere in Texas.

All of the Cowboys had tried other professions, but, by 1881, were ranchers outside Tombstone. And they were rustlers, stealing livestock on both sides of the border: Tombstone is 184 miles southeast of Phoenix, 70 miles southeast of Tucson, and 35 miles north of the Mexican border.

What's more, they had no problem taking guns inside the city limits of Tombstone. That was illegal: Contrary to the image of the "Wild West," many Western towns had strict control laws. And the Earps were determined to enforce them, against all comers.

(On the TV show Gunsmoke, Marshal Matt Dillon, played by James Arness, forced all men coming into the Longbranch Saloon to turned their firearms over to him. And since Arness, and therefore Dillon, was 6-foot-6, nobody refused. This reflected the reality in the show's setting, the real-life town of Dodge City, Kansas, where there was, on the average, one or two street gunfights a year.)

Virgil Earp got this law passed:

To Provide against Carrying of Deadly Weapons

Section 1. It is hereby declared unlawful to carry in the hand or upon the person or otherwise any deadly weapon within the limits of said city of Tombstone, without first obtaining a permit in writing.

Section 2: This prohibition does not extend to persons immediately leaving or entering the city, who, with good faith, and within reasonable time are proceeding to deposit, or take from the place of deposit such deadly weapon.

Section 3: All fire-arms of every description, and bowie knives and dirks, are included within the prohibition of this ordinance.

— Tombstone City Ordinance Number 9 Effective April 19, 1881.

A "dirk" is "a long-bladed thrusting dagger." It was often used by pirates, and was popular in Scottish Highlander units of the British Army.

The Earps and Holliday were ready to enforce the Ordinance. The Clanton Gang were ready to disobey it. And so, at 3:00 PM -- not 5:00, as seen in "Spectre of the Gun" -- on October 26, 1881, they convened on Fremont Street, a couple of blocks from the O.K. Corral (the initials stood for "Old Kindersley"), in front of the C.S. Fly photography studio.

Virgil yelled out, "Throw up your hands! I want your guns!" But Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury drew their revolvers, and Virgil yelled, "Hold! I don't mean that!" And then, 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds.

For the record:

* Wyatt Earp was not hit.

* Morgan Earp was hit in the shoulder, but recovered quickly.

* Virgil Earp was shot through the calf, and also recovered quickly.

* Doc Holliday was saved when a bullet, fired by Frank McLaury, hit his holster, allowing him to survive with only a bruise.

* Ike Clanton, despite months of threats that he was going to kill the Earps, was unarmed, and ran away from the scene, without being hit.

* Billy Claiborne was also unarmed, and ran away from the scene, without being hit.

* Frank McLaury was shot in the stomach, by Wyatt, struggled to keep firing, and was shot in the head, and was killed. It's not clear which lawman fired the fatal shot, but an investigation narrowed it down to Wyatt or Morgan.

* Tom McLaury was shot in the chest, by Holliday, and was killed.

* Billy Clanton was shot in the wrist, by Morgan. Billy switched to his uninjured left hand, and kept firing. He was shot in the chest and abdomen, and was killed. It's not clear which lawman fired the fatal shot, but both bullets he took after the wound to his wrist would likely have killed him. Nevertheless, of those who were shot, he was the only one who lived longest to give any kind of account of the fight.

As was the case in the major cities of the East in those days, there was a partisan divide reflected in competing newspapers. The Tombstone Nugget took the Cowboys' side, saying, "Blood flowed as water, and human life was held as a shuttle cock." The Tombstone Epitaph (one of the best newspaper names ever) took the Earps' side, saying, "The feeling among the best class of our citizens is that the Marshal was entirely justified in his efforts to disarm these men, and that being fired upon they had to defend themselves which they did most bravely."

Since the Epitaph had gotten the sanction of the Associated Press, that's the version that the public outside Arizona would come to accept as the truth. The coroner's report backed it up, essentially proving that Billy Clanton did not have his hands raised, thus making Ike Clanton a liar when he said Billy was trying to surrender, thus vindicating the Earps from the charge that it was murder instead of self-defense.

It didn't help the Cowboys' case that none of them lived past 1887. Ike was shot that year, while resisting arrest for stealing a horse, age 40. Billy Claiborne was killed by Frank Leslie in 1882, just 22). In contrast, both Wyatt and Virgil Earp lived into the 20th Century, with Wyatt spreading tall tales about his deeds all the way up to his death in 1929, 48 years after the shootout. He was 80. Virgil died in 1905, age 62.

And while there would be setbacks -- in the next year, Morgan would be killed (30) and Virgil badly wounded -- today, the Clantons would be forgotten if things had been settled peacefully. Then again, so might the Earps and Doc Holliday.

The Doc was already suffering from tuberculosis, and died in 1887, age 36. His last words were a comment on the fact that he was dying in bed, with bare feet, rather than in a gunfight with his boots on: "This is funny."

The incident inspired the films My Darling Clementine in 1946, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1957, and both Wyatt Earp and Tombstone in 1994. It also inspired, ironically, TV science fiction, first with an episode of Doctor Who in 1966; and, from 2016 to 2021, with Wynonna Earp, with a supernaturally-immortal Holliday helping Wyatt's great-great-granddaughters fight monsters -- and having a baby with the titular Wynonna, a choice forced on the scriptwriters by star Melanie Scrofano's real-life pregnancy.

In the 1983-84 TV season, NBC aired a series titled The Rousters, starring Chad Everett as Wyatt Earp III, who ran both a carnival and a bounty-hunting business. In spite of that show and the later Wynonna Earp, in real life, Wyatt is not known to have had any children, and thus has no descendants. The only child born to any of the Earp brothers is a daughter born to Virgil. There are living descendants of Earp siblings not involved in the gunfight.

DeForest Kelley played Ike Clanton in a TV version of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on a 1955 episode of You Are There, played Morgan Earp in the 1957 film adaptation, and in the Star Trek episode "Spectre of the Gun," his Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy was forced by an alien to stand in for Tom McLaury.

From the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Left to right:

Kirk Douglas as Holliday, Burt Lancaster as Wyatt,

John Hudson as Virgil, and DeForest Kelley as Morgan.

That episode nearly aired on the anniversary: October 25, 1968. Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) was forced to stand in for Ike Clanton, Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) as the considerably younger Billy Clanton, Science Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) as Frank McLaury, and Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) as Billy Claiborne.

From "Spectre of the Gun." Left to right:

Charles Maxwell as Virgil, Rex Holman as Morgan,

Ron Soble as Wyatt, and Sam Gilman as Holliday.

Tombstone, founded in 1879, was a frontier boomtown, due to nearby silver mines, with a population of about 14,000 by the time of the gunfight -- a huge amount for a town in the West in that era. An 1886 fire ended the boomtown status, but its status as a County Seat saved it from being completely abandoned by the time Arizona gained Statehood in 1912.

From the 1994 film Tombstone, probably the most accurate

pop-culture version of the story. Left to right:
Val Kilmer as Holliday, Sam Elliott as Virgil,

Kurt Russell as Wyatt, and Bill Paxton as Morgan.

In 1964, Detroit-based investors bought the Corral and several other historic buildings, and turned Tombstone into a "living history museum," a Wild West counterpart to Colonial Williamsburg. They also bought The Tombstone Epitaph. In 1975, the daily paper was converted into a weekly. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Arizona.

Today, the population of "The Town Too Tough to Die" is listed as 1,308 -- and they may get that population doubled in tourists.

*

October 26, 1881 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over. No college football games were played that day. Hockey barely existed. And basketball wouldn't be invented for another 10 years. So there were no scores on that historic day. There was, however, a notable birth on this date: British actress Margaret Wycherly.