The Shootout at the O.K. Corral: What Really Happened?

In 1879, Wyatt Earp headed to the unruly boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona, looking for a fresh start. Wyatt's brothers Virgil and Morgan also settled there, while their dentist friend John H. “Doc” Holliday arrived in Tombstone the following year. Wyatt and Holliday had checkered pasts that included gambling and brushes with the law, and each had seen the inside of a jail. In Tombstone, they remade themselves as upstanding citizens and lawmen and became sworn enemies of the outlaw gang known as the Cowboys.  

On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, the three Earp brothers and Doc Holliday, acting as a deputized posse, confronted a band of armed Cowboys in a narrow lot off the end of Tombstone’s Fremont Street. In a 30-second hail of bullets and buckshot now known as the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, three Cowboys were killed, the Earps and Holliday were wounded, and a legend was born. 

What really happened at the Old West’s most famous gunfight, and how did its aftermath transform Wyatt Earp from a respected lawman into a frontier vigilante?  

One of the biggest misconceptions about the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is that the deadly shootout was the result of a personal feud between some of the Cowboys—namely the Clanton and McLaury brothers—and the Earps and Doc Holliday.  

“[The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral] was not a feud between the Earps and the Cowboys,” says Old West historian and author John Boessenecker. “This was a legitimate law enforcement exercise.” 

At the time, the Cowboys were the biggest outlaw gang in the West, a loose network of more than 100 cattle thieves and bandits who operated across parts of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona and along the Mexican border. The Cowboys also dabbled in highway robbery and train heists, and trigger-happy Cowboys were responsible for more than two dozen murders by the time the Earps and Doc Holliday arrived in Tombstone.  

The Clanton and McLaury clans, who lived outside Tombstone, were key figures among Arizona's Cowboys, and their criminal activities were well-known to Virgil Earp, Tombstone’s chief of police, and his brothers Wyatt and Morgan, both deputy marshals.  

In the spring of 1881, a gang of Cowboys attempted to hold up a stagecoach outside Tombstone, killing its driver and a passenger. The Clantons and McLaurys weren’t directly involved, but their associates were. Wyatt Earp struck a secret deal with Ike Clanton to split the reward money if Clanton gave up the name of the stagecoach driver’s killers. Later, Clanton became convinced that Wyatt had told Doc Holliday about their deal, and that Holliday had outed Clanton as a snitch, an offense that could get him killed by the Cowboys.  

Holliday and Clanton had a heated confrontation on October 25, 1881, at the Alhambra Saloon in Tombstone. "You God damned cow thieving son of a bitch, you have been talking about myself and my friends and you must fight me,” Holliday told Clanton, according to Boessenecker’s book, Ride the Devil's Herd: Wyatt Earp's Epic Battle Against the West's Biggest Outlaw Gang.  

The bad blood between Ike Clanton, the Earps and Doc Holliday may have lit the fuse for the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but Boessenecker argues that the Earps confronted the Cowboys that day in their capacity as lawmen, not to settle a personal score.  

Describing Tombstone decades later, Wyatt Earp said that “the town had a population of 10,000 or 12,000, of whom about 300 were cattle thieves, stage robbers, murderers and outlaws.” While Wyatt may have inflated the numbers, he captured the sordid character of Tombstone, which popped up in the Arizona desert when silver was discovered in the nearby hills.  

"What you have in Tombstone is a community that's based on boom and bust,” says Boessenecker. “People have not gone to Tombstone to create a YMCA or to establish churches and schools. They're there to make a fast buck.” 

As Tombstone’s chief of police, Virgil Earp faced serious challenges in maintaining law and order. According to Boessenecker, in a typical month, Virgil made around 60 arrests, mostly for drunkenness and fighting in one of the town’s many saloons. Virgil even had to arrest his brother Wyatt once for “disturbing the peace and fighting” over a card game, Boessenecker notes.  

Virgil also enforced a strict “no guns” policy in Tombstone to prevent drunken scuffles from escalating into murder. Every visitor to Tombstone was expected to check their firearms at a horse stable, saloon or hotel, or else face arrest. That gun law was the catalyst for the showdown at the O.K. Corral.  

On the morning of October 26, 1881, Virgil and Wyatt each received warnings that Ike Clanton was threatening to shoot the Earps and Doc Holliday on sight. 

Virgil tracked down Clanton and found him carrying a Winchester rifle with a six-shooter tucked into his pants. Before Clanton could react, Virgil grabbed Clanton’s rifle with his left hand and pistol-whipped the Cowboy with his right. Ike Clanton was arrested, fined $25 and released, now seething with rage and even more committed to killing the Earps.  

Ike went straight to George Spangenberg’s gun shop to rearm himself. There he met up with his younger brother Billy Clanton and fellow Cowboys Tom and Frank McLaury. After Virgil saw the four men at the gun shop, he went to the Wells Fargo office and grabbed a sawed-off shotgun used by the stagecoach drivers for protection.  

All three Earp brothers—Virgil, Wyatt and Morgan—met outside Hafford’s saloon and readied themselves for a confrontation with the Cowboys. Doc Holliday found his friends and asked where they were going.  

“We’re going to make a fight,” said Wyatt, according to Boessenecker’s account. “Well, you’re not going to leave me out, are you?” asked Holliday. “It’s going to be a tough one,” replied Wyatt. “Tough ones are the kind I like,” said Holliday.  

The four-man posse of the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday walked shoulder to shoulder down Fremont Street—and into a historic shootout.  

Technically, the gunfight didn’t happen inside the O.K. Corral. The shooting occurred in a vacant lot behind the O.K. Corral, but 20th-century writers preferred the catchier name. Around 3 p.m. on October 26, Ike Clanton and five well-armed Cowboys were huddled in the narrow lot—just 15 feet wide, according to reports—waiting for the enemy.  

As the Earps and Holliday approached, they were stopped by County Sherriff John Behan, a lawman and politician who was sympathetic to the Cowboys. According to Virgil Earp, Behan told the posse that he had already disarmed the Cowboys, but that wasn’t the case. When the Earps and Holliday turned the corner on the vacant lot, they were outnumbered and outgunned by six desperadoes.  

Virgil called out, “Throw up your hands boys, I intend to disarm you!” as Holliday pulled the sawed-off shotgun from his overcoat. According to Virgil and Wyatt Earp’s later accounts, two of the Cowboys, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton, immediately reached for their Colt .44 revolvers. “Hold on!” cried Virgil, “I don’t want that!” But it was too late. The fight was on.  

“The witnesses are divided as to who shot first, but the Earps had every right,” says Boessenecker. “When the Cowboys went for their guns, the Earps may have beat them to the draw and got the first shots fired. That's really impossible to tell.” 

Wyatt first took aim at Frank McLaury, who he knew to be a better shot than Billy Clanton, and shot the Cowboy in the gut. Badly wounded, Frank was still able to squeeze off a shot from his revolver, which struck Virgil in the right leg.

Ike Clanton, the instigator, was unarmed, and tried to tackle Wyatt, but Wyatt shoved him away, yelling, “The fight has commenced! Go to fighting or get away!” Ike fled into a nearby boardinghouse along with fellow Cowboy Billy Claiborne.  

Bullets ricocheted off the walls of the narrow lot as the Cowboys and lawmen opened fire just six feet from each other. Morgan Earp, the youngest of the Earp brothers, shot Billy Clanton in the chest and pierced his lung. Seconds later, a Cowboy’s bullet struck Morgan in the shoulder and ripped across his back.  

Doc Holliday raised the 12-gauge shotgun to his shoulder and fired both barrels into Tom McLaury’s right arm and side. Holliday then dropped the spent shotgun and reached for his nickel-plated revolver, which he fired at the wounded Billy Clanton.  

Frank McLaury, already shot in the stomach, took aim at Holliday and grazed him in the hip. Holliday, ignoring his injury, returned the pistol fire, shooting Frank in the chest. Morgan, also badly wounded, spun around and shot Frank through his right ear, killing the Cowboy instantly.  

Billy Clanton, now riddled with bullets, slumped unconscious against a wall and squeezed off a final wild shot. Boessenecker calculates that 30 rounds were fired in roughly 30 seconds, the entirety of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.  

When the smoke cleared from the shootout, three Cowboys were dead: Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury and Tom McLaury. Virgil, Morgan and Doc Holliday had all taken bullets, but none of the lawmen were killed. Ike Clanton demanded justice for the deaths of his brother and the McLaurys and brought murder charges against the Earps and Holliday.  

After a monthlong preliminary hearing, during which Wyatt and Doc were held by Sherriff Behan in the Tombstone jail, Judge Wells Spicer ruled that there was insufficient evidence to bring the Earps and Holliday to trial and set them free. While Spicer admonished Virgil’s method of disarming the Cowboys as an “injudicious and censurable act,” the judge affirmed that the posse had the “right and duty” to confront the “bad, desperate and reckless men who have been a terror to the country.”  

“As the result plainly proves,” continued Judge Spicer, “[Virgil] needed the assistance and support of staunch and true friends, upon whose courage, coolness and fidelity he could depend, in case of an emergency.” 

Furious that the Earps and Holliday got away with murder, the Cowboys took matters into their own hands. Less than a month after Spicer's ruling, Virgil Earp was ambushed as he crossed a darkened Tombstone street. Three gunmen opened fire with shotguns from 60 feet and sprayed Virgil with buckshot, but the police chief survived. Morgan wasn’t so lucky. The youngest Earp was gunned down by two men as he played billiards in the back of a Tombstone saloon.  

That was the moment, Boessenecker says, when Wyatt Earp “goes from a lawman to an outlaw” as he vowed to take vengeance on the Cowboys who attacked his brothers.  

“Wyatt basically loses it,” says Boessenecker. “He finds out pretty quickly who was involved in the killing and then he sets out with no intent to enforce the law.” 

In a three-week killing spree known as Wyatt’s “Vendetta Ride,” Earp hunted any Cowboy connected with Morgan’s murder, personally gunning down Frank Stilwell, Curly Bill Brocius, Florentino Cruz and Johnny Barnes. Wanted for multiple extrajudicial killings, Wyatt fled to Colorado, where the governor refused to hand him over to Arizona authorities.  

Wyatt eventually settled in Los Angeles, California, where he was a gambler and saloon keeper until his death in 1929 at the age of 80. Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral didn’t become famous until writer Stuart Lake published his biography, Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal in 1931. The highly fictionalized bestseller gripped the imagination of Depression-era America and launched a nationwide obsession with the Old West.