It Happened in Arizona by James A. Crutchfield

Author:James A. Crutchfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780762761685
Publisher: Globe Pequot

THE GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL

1881

October 26, 1881, was a typical Wednesday in the booming mining town of Tombstone. Men and women scurried up and down Fremont Street on their daily errands, while a few lazy dogs stretched out along the plank sidewalk in front of the barbershop. Inside, the town’s sheriff, John Behan, was getting a shave. As the barber finished lathering his face, someone bolted through the door with news that the Clantons and the Earps were in town. A shootout between the two groups seemed imminent.

Behan hastily wiped his face clean and hurried down Fremont Street to a vacant lot behind the OK Corral. A small crowd of men was gathered there: Ike Clanton, his brother Billy, brothers Tom and Frank McLaury, and Billy Claiborne. Behan noticed that only Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were armed, and when he asked them to turn in their weapons, they said they were just about to leave town.

Just then, Behan saw the Earp brothers—Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan—coming down Fremont along with John H. (Doc) Holliday. Behan tried to tell the foursome that the Clantons and McLaurys were unarmed, but he was shoved brusquely aside. What happened next was the birth of a legend.

For about a minute, guns blazed. When the smoke cleared, a few wary spectators found Frank McLaury, his brother Tom, and Billy Clanton lying dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp had been wounded in the leg and neck respectively. Billy Claiborne and Ike Clanton, unarmed and unable to protect themselves, had run away. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday emerged from the shootout unscathed.

Wyatt Earp has always been considered the hero of the shootout at the OK Corral, primarily because of an account of the incident in an inaccurate and biased biography written by a friend, Stuart N. Lake (Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal). Numerous off-base television shows and movies have perpetuated Earp’s reputation. Even today, after historians have spent decades debunking the myth of the man and his role in Tombstone history, he still rides high among the uninformed as a great hero of the American West.

In fact, Wyatt Earp was nothing more than a part-time lawman who made most of his living by gambling and who was not adverse to breaking the law himself if it was to his advantage. At the time of the shootout, Earp’s brother Virgil was the town marshal, and he had deputized Wyatt, Morgan, and Doc Holliday. They were responsible for keeping order within the town limits. Behan and his deputies upheld the laws of the newly established Cochise County.

The Clanton gang was known as the “Cowboys.” They had been led by Newman H. (“Old Man”) Clanton, the father of Billy and Ike, until Newman’s death the previous August. They were known to rustle Mexican cattle for resale in Arizona. Illegal though this activity was, it should not have concerned the town marshals of Tombstone.

In reality, the Earps had come gunning for the Clantons and their friends because Ike Clanton knew that Wyatt and Doc Holliday were the perpetrators of a recent stagecoach robbery.

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