MILESTONESBrothers Against Brothers
By 1881 Tombstone had a population of
more than 7,000 and was the seat of the
newly formed Cochise County. The area
was thriving but had a notorious repu-
tation for being rough and lawless. The
Earps were drawn to Tombstone by the
promise of fortune from the silver rush.
Wyatt Earp had served as a police offi-
cer in Wichita and Dodge City, Kansas,
before he moved to Tombstone in late
- With him came his brother, Virgil,
a miner and soldier who would become
Tombstone’s town marshal in 1880.
Morgan, a younger brother of Wyatt
and Virgil, joined his siblings in Tomb-
stone that same year. Shortly after came
a man who had befriended Wyatt Earp
in Dodge City: Doc Holliday, a former
dentist from Georgia turned gambler and
gunfighter. All the brothers had other in-
come that was unrelated to law enforce-
ment, with stakes in mines and saloons
and occasional work as bartenders and
private security.
The Earp-Holliday faction had rivals
in Tombstone: the cowboys. The Clanton
and the McLaury brothers had a reputa-
tion as outlaws and were known to make
their living thanks to cattle rustling. Beef
shortages in the growing towns had given
them a way of making easy money. They
would rustle cattle on both sides of the
U.S.-Mexico border.
Keen to meet demand, the butchers in
Tombstone were not particularly fussy
about the meat’s origins, particularly if
it was from the other side of the frontier.
The first source of tension between the
cowboys and the Earps was over somestolen mules that the Earps tracked down
to the McLaury ranch. The McLaurys,
meanwhile, accused the Earps of acting
for their own benefit instead of acting
as law officers.Politics and Pistols
Wyatt Earp developed a professional
rivalry with a fellow politician, Johnny
Behan. Ten months be-
fore the shoot-out,
Behan and Earp
had both run for
sheriff in Co-
chise County.WYATT EARP IN A COLORED, 19TH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHWyatt Earp had served as a police
officer in Wichita and Dodge
City, Kansas, before he moved to
Tombstone in late 1879.LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
THE SHOOT-OUT between the Earps and the cowboys did not tech-
nically take place at the Old Kindersley horse corral. The actual
location was a vacant lot at the end of Fremont Street, Tombstone’s
main thoroughfare (shown above in 1882), which was located
behind the O.K. Corral.UIG/ALBUMGRANGER/AURIMAGES