14 MARCH/APRIL 2020friend John “Doc” Holliday. The oth-
er was a loose band of outlaws called
the “cowboys”: Among their members
were brothers Ike and Billy Clanton and
brothers Tom and Frank McLaury. The
rising tensions between the two groups
revealed that the line between law en-
forcement and vendetta was very thin
in the Arizona Territory.
Tombstone was founded a few years
earlier by Ed Schieffelin, a former scout
with the United States Army. Schieffe-
lin headed to the Arizona Territory in
the 1870s to strike it rich in mining. HeT
he afternoon of October 26,
1881, gunfire erupted in the
frontier town of Tombstone.
The fighting was over in less
than a minute, and when the
gun smoke cleared, three men lay dead.
This short skirmish might have been a
footnote in American history, but it grew
and became a legend, perhaps the most
famous in the Old West.
A feud had been building between two
rival factions in Tombstone. One was
led by Kansas lawman Wyatt Earp, his
brothers Virgil and Morgan, and theirfound a promising spot in what is today
southeastern Arizona, about 30 miles
north of the Mexican border.
Schieffelin was warned by soldiers
that, having chosen a spot in Apache
territory, he was more likely to find his
own tombstone than precious metals.
When Schieffelin hit on a seam of silver
there in 1877, he had the last laugh and
called the claim Tombstone. The name
was carried over as the name of the set-
tlement founded near the site, fueled
by a silver rush that attracted fortune
hunters to the new town.Gunfight at the O.K. Corral:
Truths and Legends
The lawless Western town of Tombstone was the setting for the most famous shoot-out
in U.S. history, turning cowboys into villains and making Wyatt Earp a star.THE EARP BROTHERS and their
friend Doc Holliday advance on the
“cowboys” in a dramatic oil painting
by British artist Howard Morgan
that re-creates the shoot-out at
the O.K. Corral.
BRIDGEMAN/ACI