What Happened at the O.K. Corral?

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a very famous Old West gun battle that became a part of American pop culture. The gunfight involved Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, who were famous lawmen, and helping them in the fight was a card-playing dentist from the state of Georgia with a violent reputation named Doc Holiday. On the other side was a group of cowboys including Billy and Ike Clanton, Tom McLaury and his brother Frank, along with Billy Claiborne. The lawmen were attempting to disarm the cowboys, and three of the cowboys were killed in the shootout. It happened in the month of October in 1881, and the location was Tombstone, Arizona.

Prior to the O.K. Corral shootout, there had been escalating tensions between the Earp Brothers and the Clanton and McLaury families, who owned major ranches in the area. Virgil Earp was the only official lawman in the family at the time, and he deputized his brothers. The group had implemented a ban on guns in the city limits, and this had already caused altercations with the Clantons. Doc Holiday, who was friendly with the Earps, had also had a run-in with Ike Clanton that nearly resulted in a gun battle.

The Clanton and McLaury brothers, along with Billy Claiborne, gathered at the O.K. Corral. The Earps decided it was time to confront them and attempt to disarm them. Doc Holiday accompanied them, carrying a shotgun. Nobody knows who fired the first shot, but at the end of the fight, both the McClaurys were dead, and so was Billy Clanton. On the other side, everybody survived, but they were all wounded except for Wyatt.

There are some who feel the Earps were using their badges to carry out an act that was equivalent to a gang hit. Some modern historians have seen the battle this way, and there were people at the time that felt the same. The Earps actually had to go on trial for murder, but they were ultimately found not guilty. Wyatt and his brothers eventually became heroes because of this fight, and most dramatizations have shown them in a positive light, but there are still many disputes about the politics and reasoning for the battle.

After the fight at the O.K. Corral, there was an eventful aftermath. Morgan and Virgil Earp were both victimized by assassination attempts. Virgil was wounded, and Morgan was killed. Wyatt and Doc allegedly went on a rampage of revenge afterward, killing many of the people responsible without any real legal authority.