The gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a thirty-second gunfight between lawmen led by Virgil Earp and members of a loosely organized group of outlaws called the Cowboys that occurred at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona, United States. It is generally regarded as the most famous gunfight in the history of the American Old West.
John HenryHolliday, better known as Doc Holliday, was a dentist and later a gambler, gunfighter, and a close friend and associate of lawman Wyatt Earp. Holliday is best known for his role in the events surrounding and his participation in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. He developed a reputation as having killed more than a dozen men in various altercations, but modern researchers have concluded that, contrary to popular myth-making, Holliday killed only one to three men. Holliday's colorful life and character have been depicted in many books and portrayed by well-known actors in numerous movies and television series.
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American lawman and gambler in the American West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp was involved in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys. While Wyatt is often depicted as the key figure in the shootout, his brother Virgil was both Deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone City Marshal that day and had considerably more experience in law enforcement as a sheriff, constable, and marshal than did Wyatt. Virgil made the decision to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in town and to disarm the Cowboys. Wyatt was only a temporary assistant marshal to his brother.
Virgil Walter Earp was both deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone, Arizona, City Marshal when he led his younger brothers Wyatt and Morgan, and Doc Holliday, in a confrontation with outlaw Cowboys at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. They killed brothers Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton. All three Earp brothers had been the target of repeated death threats made by the Cowboys who were upset by the Earps' interference in their illegal activities. All four lawmen were charged with murder by Ike Clanton, who had run from the gunfight. During a month-long preliminary hearing, Judge Wells Spicer exonerated the men, concluding they had been performing their duty.
Tombstone is a 1993 American Western film directed by George P. Cosmatos, written by Kevin Jarre, and starring Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer, with Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, and Dana Delany in supporting roles, as well as narration by Robert Mitchum.
Morgan Seth Earp was an American sheriff and lawman. He served as Tombstone, Arizona's Special Policeman when he helped his brothers Virgil and Wyatt, as well as Doc Holliday, confront the outlaw Cochise County Cowboys in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. All three Earp brothers had been the target of repeated death threats made by the Cowboys who were upset by the Earps' interference in their illegal activities. The lawmen killed Cowboys Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton. All four lawmen were charged with murder by Billy's older brother, Ike Clanton, who had run from the gunfight. During a month-long preliminary hearing, Judge Wells Spicer exonerated the men, concluding they had been performing their duty.
John Peters Ringo, known as Johnny Ringo, was an American Old West outlaw loosely associated with the Cochise County Cowboys in frontier boomtown Tombstone, Arizona Territory. He took part in the Mason County War in Texas during which he committed his first murder. He was arrested and charged with murder. He was affiliated with Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan, Ike Clanton, and Frank Stilwell during 1881–1882. He got into a confrontation in Tombstone with Doc Holliday and was suspected by Wyatt Earp of having taken part in the attempted murder of Virgil Earp and the ambush and death of Morgan Earp. Ringo was found dead with a bullet wound to his temple which was ruled a suicide. Modern writers have advanced various theories attributing his death to Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Frank Leslie or Michael O'Rourke.
William Brocius, better known as Curly Bill Brocius, was an American gunman, rustler and an outlaw Cowboy in the Cochise County area of the Arizona Territory during the late 1870s and early 1880s. His name is likely an alias or nickname, and some evidence links him to another outlaw named William "Curly Bill" Bresnaham, who was convicted of an 1878 attempted robbery and murder in El Paso, Texas.
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp is the first Western television series written for adults. It premiered four days before Gunsmoke on September 6, 1955. Two weeks later came the Clint Walker western Cheyenne. The series is loosely based on the life of frontier marshal Wyatt Earp. The half-hour, black-and-white program aired for six seasons on ABC from 1955 to 1961, with Hugh O'Brian in the title role.
Trevor Bardette was an American film and television actor. Among many other roles in his long and prolific career, Bardette appeared in several episodes of Adventures of Superman and as Newman Haynes Clanton, or Old Man Clanton, in 21 episodes of the ABC/Desilu western series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.
Wyatt Earp is a 1994 American epic biographical Western drama film directed and produced by Lawrence Kasdan, and co-written by Kasdan and Dan Gordon. The film covers the lawman of the same name's life, from an Iowa farmboy, to a feared marshal, to the feud in Tombstone, Arizona that led to the O.K. Corral gunfight. Starring Kevin Costner in the title role, it features an ensemble supporting cast that includes Gene Hackman, Mark Harmon, Michael Madsen, Bill Pullman, Dennis Quaid, Isabella Rossellini, Tom Sizemore, JoBeth Williams, Mare Winningham and Jim Caviezel in one of his earliest roles.
John Harris Behan was an American law enforcement officer and politician who served as Sheriff of Cochise County in the Arizona Territory, during the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and was known for his opposition to the Earps. Behan was sheriff of Yavapai County from 1871 to 1873. He was married and had two children, but his wife divorced him, accusing him of consorting with prostitutes. He was elected to the Seventh Arizona Legislative Assembly, representing Yavapai County. In 1881, Wyatt Earp served for about five months as undersheriff of the eastern half of Pima County. When Wyatt resigned, Behan was appointed to fill his place, which included the mining boomtown Tombstone. When Cochise County was formed in February 1881, Behan was appointed as its first sheriff. Tombstone became the new county seat and the location of Behan's office. Sadie Marcus was his mistress, possibly as early as 1875 in Tip Top, Arizona, and certainly from 1880 until she found him in bed with another woman and kicked him out in mid-1881.
The Earp Vendetta Ride was a deadly search by a federal posse led by Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp for a loose confederation of outlaw "Cowboys" they believed had ambushed his brothers Virgil and Morgan Earp, maiming the former and killing the latter. The two Earp brothers had been attacked in retaliation for the deaths of three Cowboys in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. From March 20 to April 15, 1882, the federal posse searched southeast Cochise County, Arizona Territory for the men they believed were responsible for the attacks on Virgil and Morgan. Several suspects had been identified and were charged, but were soon released by the court, owing in some cases to legal technicalities and in others to the strength of alibis provided by Cowboy confederates. Wyatt hoped that the legal system would bring the Cowboys to justice, but after suspects in both ambushes were freed, Wyatt resolved to take matters into his own hands.
Sunset is a 1988 American crime mystery western film written and directed by Blake Edwards and starring Bruce Willis as Western actor Tom Mix, who teams up with lawman Wyatt Earp, portrayed for the second time in a theatrical film by James Garner. Based on an unpublished novel by Rod Amateau, the plot has Earp and Mix solve a murder in Hollywood in 1929.
Nicholas Porter Earp was the father of well-known Western lawmen Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan, and their lesser-known brothers James, Newton and Warren Earp. He was a justice of the peace, a farmer, cooper, constable, bootlegger, wagon-master, and teacher.
Wells W. Spicer was an American journalist, prospector, politician, lawyer and judge whose legal career immersed him in two significant events in frontier history: the Mountain Meadows massacre in the Utah Territory in 1857; and the 1881 shootout commonly known as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. After he left Tombstone, he returned to prospecting. He disappeared in 1885 or 1887.
Tom McLaury was an American outlaw. He and his brother Frank owned a ranch outside Tombstone, Arizona, Arizona Territory during the 1880s. He was a member of a group of outlaws Cowboys and cattle rustlers that had ongoing conflicts with lawmen Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp. The McLaury brothers repeatedly threatened the Earps because they interfered with the Cowboys' illegal activities. On October 26, 1881, Tom and Frank were both killed in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. The Tombstone shootout was his only gunfight.
The Cochise County Cowboys is the modern name for a loosely associated group of outlaws living in Pima and Cochise County, Arizona in the late 19th century. The term "cowboy", as opposed to "cowhand," had only begun to come into wider usage during the 1870s. In that place and time, "cowboy" was synonymous with "cattle rustler". Such thieves frequently rode across the border into Mexico and stole cattle from Mexican ranches that they then drove back across the border to sell in the United States. Some modern writers consider them to be an early form of organized crime in America.
Cochise County in southeastern Arizona was the scene of a number of violent conflicts in the 19th-century and early 20th-century American Old West, including between white settlers and Apache Indians, between opposing political and economic factions, and between outlaw gangs and local law enforcement. Cochise County was carved off in 1881 from the easternmost portion of Pima County during a formative period in the American Southwest. The era was characterized by rapidly growing boomtowns, the emergence of large-scale farming and ranching interests, lucrative mining operations, and the development of new technologies in railroading and telecommunications. Complicating the situation was staunch resistance to white settlement from local Native American groups, most notably during the Apache Wars, as well as Cochise County's location on the border with Mexico, which not only threatened international conflict but also presented opportunities for criminal smugglers and cattle rustlers.
The O.K. Corral hearing and aftermath was the direct result of the 30-second Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, on October 26, 1881. During that confrontation, Deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone Town Marshal Virgil Earp, Assistant Town Marshal Morgan Earp, and temporary deputy marshals Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday shot and killed Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury. Billy's brother Ike, who had repeatedly threatened to kill the Earps for some time, had been present at the gunfight but was unarmed and fled. As permitted by territory law, he filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday on October 30.
