Photo courtesy of the Western Heritage Foundation
by John Mason Glen, Ph.D., the Prescott Western Heritage Foundation
Virtually everyone knows of the gun battle that took place in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, on Oct.26, 1881, near the O.K. Corral.
It has been the subject of at least seven full-length motion pictures (John Ford, director of My Darling Clementine, even placed Tombstone in his beloved Monument Valley, some 500 miles away), numerous books and articles.
The gunfight was not all that well known until the publication of Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshall, by Stuart Lake in 1931.
The participants on the one side were Tombstone Town Marshall Virgil Earp, deputy Morgan Earp, temporary deputies Wyatt Earp and John H. “Doc” Holliday. The opposing element was comprised of local ranchers Tom and Frank McLaury, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Billy Claybourne.
The Tombstone City Council had enacted a town ordinance prohibiting the carrying of firearms within city limits. Virgil had been informed that morning the McLaury-Clanton men were violating the ordnance, and he planned to disarm them.
When the Earps and Holliday arrived at the vacant lot adjacent to C.S. Fly’s photography studio and a few steps from the O.K. Corral, they encountered the armed cowboys. Virgil, not expecting any violence, said something like” “Throw up your hands, I want your guns,” and the fight began.
Witnesses gave conflicting accounts as to who initiated the fight, but when the 30-second long encounter was over, brothers Frank and Tom McLaury, as well as Billy Clanton lay mortally wounded. Morgan Earp and Holliday were slightly injured; Virgil had taken a bullet to the leg. Billy Claiborne and Ike fled as the shooting began.
At the coroner’s inquest, the Earps claimed they had been enforcing the law, while Ike Clanton claimed his brother and friends had been shot down in cold blood. No one was indicted, but about a month later, Virgil’s left arm was horribly maimed when he was ambushed as he left the Oriental saloon on 5th Street.
Three months later, Morgan Earp was murdered by “person or persons unknown,” while shooting pool.
Wyatt, with brothers Warren and James, plus several friends went on a ”vendetta ride,” and killed Frank Stillwell at the Tucson train station, well as Florentino Cruz, and “Curley Bill” Brociu — all suspected in the assassination of Morgan.
One of the displays at the Western Heritage Center at 156 S. Montezuma St., is on Virgil. Admission is free.
