Speaker 1: As the story goes, a young girl lived with her
Speaker 1: family deep in the woods of Wisconsin, and those woods
Speaker 1: were thick and dark. In fact, the woods were so
Speaker 1: dense that the trees existed as far as the eye
Speaker 1: could see, and beyond that more woods. A traveler heading
Speaker 1: north from the little gray Log cabin wouldn't come upon
Speaker 1: another house or road for nearly a month. The young
Speaker 1: girl and her family lived alone, with no one but
Speaker 1: trees and wild animals to keep them company. It was
Speaker 1: just Laura, her parents, sisters Mary and Carrie, and their
Speaker 1: devoted dog Jack. Life was an adventure, but hardly easy.
Speaker 1: The family had to grow or catch their own food.
Speaker 1: The story, which takes place in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: is mostly true. You see, Laura, the author skillfully blended
Speaker 1: fiction with experiences from her childhood. Together with her daughter Rose,
Speaker 1: Laura's novel became one of America's mother read and loved
Speaker 1: children's books. Rose continued to be her mother's editor, and
Speaker 1: soon other books followed. Little House in the Big Woods.
Speaker 1: The third and most famous book follows the family as
Speaker 1: they moved to Independence, Kansas. In the third book, we
Speaker 1: learn of a different life for the family. One of
Speaker 1: peril and difficulties. Although the land belonged to the Osage
Speaker 1: tribe of Native Americans, the family and a handful of
Speaker 1: other settlers still built small farms, much to the disapproval
Speaker 1: of those who owned them. Eventually, though the family was
Speaker 1: forced to leave. This book and the six others that
Speaker 1: followed help establish America's view of life on the frontier.
Speaker 1: Decades later, the book would inspire the classic Western TV
Speaker 1: drama of the same name, Little House on the Prairie.
Speaker 1: The novels focused on the Ingles family and their struggle
Speaker 1: during tough economic times after the Civil War. Laura wrote
Speaker 1: about the homestead pushes westward, the forced displacement of Native
Speaker 1: Americans from their land, railroads, recession, and devastating illnesses. Laura
Speaker 1: Ingalls was born in eighteen sixty seven. Her earliest memories
Speaker 1: were of life in the woods, a few miles from Pepin, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: At eighteen, Laura followed in her family's path. She married
Speaker 1: Almonzo Wilder, ten years her senior, and like her parents, Laura, Almonzo,
Speaker 1: and their daughter Rose moved from place to place seeking
Speaker 1: financial stability. When her husband suffered partial paralysis from complications
Speaker 1: of diphtheria. Laura took in borders and waited on tables
Speaker 1: to make ends meet until he recovered. She also wrote
Speaker 1: magazine articles for McCalls and Country Gentlemen. Her columns about politics,
Speaker 1: women's suffrage, and farm life were popular with readers. When
Speaker 1: the stock market crash wiped out her family savings, though
Speaker 1: Laura did what she always had. She climbed out of
Speaker 1: a tough situation. She began to write books based on
Speaker 1: her life experiences and the rest, as they say, is history.
Speaker 1: When we imagine the Wild West, we think of cowboys,
Speaker 1: Native Americans, and stage coaches filled with settlers heading west.
Speaker 1: And of course we picture saloons, shootouts and legendary outlaws.
Speaker 1: But how much is fact and how much is fiction?
Speaker 1: Like miners panning for gold, it turns out that even
Speaker 1: among legendary tales, there's always a little nugget of truth.
Speaker 1: So saddle up, partner, You're in for quite a ride,
Speaker 1: because this isn't the story of how the American West
Speaker 1: was won, but how it was spun. I'm Aaron Mankee,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Wild West. It's rare when historians
Speaker 1: can agree that a particular ideology began on a specific date.
Speaker 1: Despite the oppressive hot temperatures of July twelfth of eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety three, thousands of people flocked to the Chicago World's
Speaker 1: Columbian Exhibition. Visitors were treated to the world's largest fair
Speaker 1: ever hosted with more shows, games, food, and lectures than
Speaker 1: any other before it. One of the most popular attractions
Speaker 1: was the ferris Wheel and the Other Buffalo, Bill Cody's
Speaker 1: Wild West Show. Cody knew how to draw crowds, and
Speaker 1: the grand stands were packed. Advertised as the greatest equestrian
Speaker 1: event of the century, over four hundred and fifty horseback
Speaker 1: riders participated, from trained military cavalry to cowboys, Native Americans
Speaker 1: and writers from other countries. The tricks and show that
Speaker 1: they put on were unrivaled. Before the exposition, Cody put
Speaker 1: on a parade and hosted a picnic for poor children
Speaker 1: who otherwise might not be able to see him. Billboards,
Speaker 1: illustrating an overly sensational portrayal of life in the Great Frontier,
Speaker 1: captured the attention of children and adults throughout Chicago. Hundreds
Speaker 1: of historians attended the exposition, eager to record and participate
Speaker 1: in the historic event. With so much to see and
Speaker 1: do few took note of a thirty one year old
Speaker 1: historian named Frederick Jackson Turner when he stepped up to
Speaker 1: the podium. The Midwest and West had been the driving
Speaker 1: force that brought the American people together as one. He
Speaker 1: told his peers, immigrants were freed from the stigma that
Speaker 1: they and their ancestors had brought across the Atlantic. When
Speaker 1: immigrants and descendants of earlier settlers made their way west,
Speaker 1: people across America had been determined to conquer and tame
Speaker 1: the West, regardless of the cost. He claimed that the
Speaker 1: white Americans duty was to bring customs, culture, and religion
Speaker 1: to the savage indigenous people. And I hope you can
Speaker 1: hear the massive air quotes I used there around the
Speaker 1: word savage. Over time, Turner's thesis on the frontier would
Speaker 1: be retold in political speech and taught in American academia.
Speaker 1: His speech helped define our beliefs on early settlement in
Speaker 1: the wild West. Soon tales of railroad expansion and bold
Speaker 1: train robberies were handed down. Stories of saloons and the
Speaker 1: gold Rush delighted listeners from cowtowns to ghost towns. Stories
Speaker 1: of the Wild West became popular fights with Native Americans,
Speaker 1: shootouts on dusty streets at high noon, and legends of
Speaker 1: the most notorious outlaws to ever live found their way
Speaker 1: to our history books. Ranchers to farm hands shared their
Speaker 1: experiences and perils, and like most tales, many were embellished.
Speaker 1: Even so, those living on the East Coast eagerly read
Speaker 1: magazine articles, memoirs, and newspaper stories all about the frontier.
Speaker 1: As with many a great story, they often have a
Speaker 1: way of twisting and turning. With each retelling of the facts,
Speaker 1: myth and legend become so entwined that it's nearly impossible
Speaker 1: to separate them. The Wild West Era, otherwise known as
Speaker 1: the Old West Era, began just at the end of
Speaker 1: the Civil War in eighteen sixty five and continued through
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties. In those short twenty five years, we've
Speaker 1: romanticized a good portion of it. So before we dig in,
Speaker 1: there are a few creative, but slightly misguided beliefs about
Speaker 1: the area that we need to discuss. Today, we picture
Speaker 1: cowboys wearing large stetson hats. It's a great look, but
Speaker 1: mostly inaccurate. Stetson's weren't in style at the time. Instead,
Speaker 1: most men wore bowler hats, and those odd saloon doors
Speaker 1: that hung from chest height to knee length also not accurate.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to say the doors were actually floor to
Speaker 1: ceiling length to keep out the dust. Hei noun. Shootouts
Speaker 1: weren't common either, and those bank robberies, well, historians speculate
Speaker 1: that you'd be more likely to witness a bank robbery
Speaker 1: today than back then. So what about all the stories
Speaker 1: of Butch Cassidy and Jesse James, Well, it comes down
Speaker 1: to fame, you see, bank robberies were challenging to pull off,
Speaker 1: so a successful heist made outlaws instantly famous. And speaking
Speaker 1: of these famous outlaws, there's probably no greater tale of
Speaker 1: the American West than the life and times of Robert
Speaker 1: Leroy Parker, although, as you might have already guessed, that's
Speaker 1: not the name most people remember him by. Robert Leroy
Speaker 1: Parker entered the world on Friday the thirteenth in April
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty six in Beaver, Utah. His parents and grandparents,
Speaker 1: along with their founder, Joseph Smith, were devout Mormons who
Speaker 1: finally settled in Utah when Parker turned thirteen. The family
Speaker 1: eventually moved to a small, unassuming one room farmhouse near Circleville.
Speaker 1: For those who love odd facts, thirteen came up a
Speaker 1: lot in Parker's history because he was also one of
Speaker 1: thirteen children. For entertainment, the family sang and played music together.
Speaker 1: Parker and his siblings enjoyed each other's company, often creating
Speaker 1: new games to play. They were also mischievous. One day,
Speaker 1: Missus Parker noticed the chickens acting strangely. It turned out
Speaker 1: that the chickens were drunk. Her children had stolen some
Speaker 1: of the neighbor's wine and added it to the chickens
Speaker 1: water pans. Otherwise, life was typical for the family. They
Speaker 1: raised cattle, and while his siblings helped on his parents' ranch,
Speaker 1: Parker worked at other ranches to help support the family,
Speaker 1: and that work took Parker further and further away from
Speaker 1: his family and the church. It was at one of
Speaker 1: the many ranches in western Utah that Parker met Mike Cassidy.
Speaker 1: Part time cow hand and full time wrestler, Mike Cassidy
Speaker 1: frequently found himself at odds with the law. Parker shared
Speaker 1: his new mentor's distrust of the law. After a brief
Speaker 1: run in when he was young, he had run an
Speaker 1: errand to the general store, only to find it closed,
Speaker 1: and not wanting to make the journey back empty handed,
Speaker 1: he took a pair of pants and left a note
Speaker 1: to the shopkeeper promising to return with the money. He
Speaker 1: was arrested, but the ShopKeep eventually dropped the charges. Some
Speaker 1: say it was this experience and Cassidy's influence that soured
Speaker 1: Parker on law enforcement. Mike Cassidy took Parker under his
Speaker 1: wing and taught him how to shoot a gun and
Speaker 1: train horses. Not long after, though, he left the ranch,
Speaker 1: leaving Parker behind. So when Parker turned eighteen, he also left,
Speaker 1: hoping to find more in life than farming and cattle.
Speaker 1: He moved around for while before settling until You Ride Colorado.
Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty one, Parker met Matt Warner, who owned
Speaker 1: a race horse. With Parker's knowledge of training horses, the
Speaker 1: two paired up and split the horse's winnings. It wasn't enough, though,
Speaker 1: and Warner suggested a side job a bank robbery, and
Speaker 1: Parker agreed. Now it's unclear why Parker changed his name
Speaker 1: to Cassidy around this time. It could have been to
Speaker 1: honor his mentor to protect his family, or even to
Speaker 1: create a different persona regardless, Cassidy, Warner and two other
Speaker 1: men robbed the San Miguel Bank of twenty one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars worth approximately half a million dollars today. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: men spent a large portion of the money at saloons
Speaker 1: and brothels. Cassidy left till You Ride with what little
Speaker 1: money he hadn't squandered, and found work as a butcher
Speaker 1: in Rock Springs, Wyoming. Before long, the people of a
Speaker 1: small town began calling him Butcher Cassidy, and then just
Speaker 1: Butch Cassidy, as you might have guessed. Though, he grew
Speaker 1: tired of working at as a butcher and purchased a
Speaker 1: ranch in Du Bois. Though the ranch was more of
Speaker 1: a front for a Cassidy's rustling business than a place
Speaker 1: to actually raise cattle, the venture proved successful until eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, when the local sheriff arrested Cassidy for stealing horses.
Speaker 1: The eighteen month long sentence did little to deter him
Speaker 1: from returning to a life of crime, though. After that
Speaker 1: he banded together with best friend William elz Ellsworth, Lay
Speaker 1: Harvey kid Curry Logan, and Ben Tall Texan Kilpatrick among
Speaker 1: many others. Together, they called themselves the Wild Bunch, and
Speaker 1: in August of eighteen ninety six, they robbed a bank
Speaker 1: of seven thousand dollars, a fortune by today's standards. A
Speaker 1: whole string of other robberies followed in South Dakota, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah,
Speaker 1: and Montana. The gang used a place called the Hole
Speaker 1: in the Wall Pass as their hideout, a popular stretch
Speaker 1: of land among outlaws in Wyoming. Their success also meant
Speaker 1: that they were wanted men, and many a town sheriff
Speaker 1: were eager to hunt them down. In eighteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: local law enforcement arrested a few of the Wild Bunch,
Speaker 1: including Cassidy's best friend Elsie Lay. To fill the void
Speaker 1: in their lineup, Kid Curry brought in a newcomer, Harry Longabau.
Speaker 1: Don't recognize the name, Well, that's because his nickname is
Speaker 1: infinitely more famous. Harry Longabow, you see, was the Sun
Speaker 1: Dance Kid. Harry Alonzo Longabau was just a year younger
Speaker 1: than Butch Cassidy. Back when he was fifteen, he was
Speaker 1: sent to help his cousin George suttle out west in Cortes, Colorado,
Speaker 1: while helping his cousin settle in, Harry worked at a
Speaker 1: neighboring ranch, learning to buy and sell horses. That trade
Speaker 1: offered other opportunities for work, and he soon left Cortes
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six, taking on a job at a
Speaker 1: ranch in Montana. Now Montana winters are hard, and that
Speaker 1: year was worse than most. The ranch let go of
Speaker 1: many of its ranch hands, so Harry drifted for a while,
Speaker 1: but finding work seemed harder than the winter itself. Now,
Speaker 1: his travels took him to a ranch near Sundance, Wyoming,
Speaker 1: where he stole a horse, a saddle, and a gun.
Speaker 1: The theft landed him an eighteen month prison sentence. Then
Speaker 1: the story of it all gave him his nickname, the
Speaker 1: Sun Dance Kid. It was in eighteen ninety seven that
Speaker 1: he met the Wild Bunch member Kid Curry, and they
Speaker 1: robbed bank together in South Dakota. Authorities did capture them,
Speaker 1: but the outlaws escaped a few months later. After that,
Speaker 1: the pair made their way to the Wild Bunch's hideout.
Speaker 1: While Cassidy and Sundance weren't the best friends that the
Speaker 1: legends would have us believe, they did work well together
Speaker 1: and they began making a name for themselves, although not
Speaker 1: just as outlaws. You see, Cassidy never resorted to violence,
Speaker 1: at least he claimed that he never shot anyone. And
Speaker 1: another thing that made the pair stand out was that
Speaker 1: they occasionally gave some of their stolen money to those
Speaker 1: in need, like a Wild West version of Robin Hood.
Speaker 1: Cassidy's read mutation for helping those in need made the
Speaker 1: Outlaws popular among the common folk across several states. Soft
Speaker 1: hearted and shrewd marketing plan, this alliance between townsfolk and
Speaker 1: outlaws made capturing them a lot more difficult, and the
Speaker 1: Wild Bunch had another ally at a place Sundance met
Speaker 1: Ella sometime in the eighteen nineties, and the bond that
Speaker 1: they formed helped to romanticize the legend. But heroes are outlaws,
Speaker 1: the gang presented a growing problem to the authorities. The
Speaker 1: Wild Bunch robbed a Union Pacific Railroad train on June
Speaker 1: second of eighteen ninety nine of around fifty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: which would be worth over one point eight million today.
Speaker 1: The gang had successfully pulled off the most incredible train
Speaker 1: robbery in history. A month later, Cassidy stayed behind while
Speaker 1: the rest of the Wild Bunch robbed the Colorado and
Speaker 1: Southern Railroad for a similar amount. This time, though authorities
Speaker 1: caught up with the gang. The ensuing gun battle killed
Speaker 1: men on both sides. Els A Lay was arrested and
Speaker 1: sentenced to life in print in for killing a sheriff.
Speaker 1: As for the rest of the Wild Bunch, Federal authorities
Speaker 1: called in the Pinkerton Agency for assistance, offering a thirty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars reward. In nineteen hundred, Cassidy wrote a letter
Speaker 1: to Utah's governor asking for amnesty. The governor suggested that
Speaker 1: Cassidy ask the Union Pacific Railroad to drop the charges instead,
Speaker 1: butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid robbed another one of
Speaker 1: their trains on August twenty ninth of nineteen hundred, noting
Speaker 1: them fifty five thousand dollars, hardly the letter the railroad
Speaker 1: was expecting. I'm sure Cassidy and Sundance fled to New
Speaker 1: York after that. In nineteen oh one, the men, along
Speaker 1: with at a Place, headed to Buenos Aires to settle
Speaker 1: into a new life there. The trio even purchased a
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand acre ranch on Rio Blanco's East bank and
Speaker 1: Here's where Cassidy and Sundance made a fatal mistake. They
Speaker 1: went back to a life of crime. The men you see,
Speaker 1: sold everything and went on the run once again. By
Speaker 1: nineteen oh four, word of English speaking outlaws had reached
Speaker 1: the United Slime States. They were wanted by the South
Speaker 1: American government, and now the Pinkerton Agency had sent their
Speaker 1: best to track them down.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: A courier for a silver mine claimed that two American
Speaker 1: bandits had robbed them, and witnesses told authorities that they
Speaker 1: spotted the men at a boarding house. Three days later.
Speaker 1: Bolivian soldiers and the local police surrounded the house on
Speaker 1: the evening of November sixth of nineteen oh eight. Bolivia's
Speaker 1: mayor also showed up, intent on personally handcuffing the outlaws himself.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was a great plan, but it didn't
Speaker 1: work out that way. Shots rang out, killing one of
Speaker 1: the soldiers. The other soldiers and the police returned fire,
Speaker 1: not stopping until they had riddled the walls with bullet holes.
Speaker 1: After a brief moment of quiet, screaming erupted from within
Speaker 1: the house. The crack of two gunshots followed, and then silence.
Speaker 1: Soldiers burst into the house and found two men dead
Speaker 1: on the floor. After a legendary career, Butch Cassidy and
Speaker 1: the sun Dance Kid had reached the end of the line.
Speaker 1: Both bodies had several gunshot wounds. The man believed to
Speaker 1: be Sundance had been shot between the eye's execution style.
Speaker 1: The other body had a fatal bullet wound in the head.
Speaker 1: It appeared that Cassidy had shot Sundance to put him
Speaker 1: out of his pain from the other wounds, and then
Speaker 1: turned the gun on himself rather than be captured. Bolivian
Speaker 1: officials buried the bodies in the San Vicente Cemetery in
Speaker 1: unmarked graves. With that, both countries moved on. But there
Speaker 1: was a problem. The men who robbed the courier might
Speaker 1: not have been Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Eventually,
Speaker 1: whispers of their escape began to spread. Rumors soon became legend,
Speaker 1: arguably one of the most famous stories of the Wild West.
Speaker 1: So what happened to the outlaws? Did they die in
Speaker 1: a blaze of glory as depicted in the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine films starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, or did
Speaker 1: they escape in the nineteen nineties, researchers set out to
Speaker 1: find their graves and put the long standing rumors to rest.
Speaker 1: They tested the remains of the men buried in several graves,
Speaker 1: but none of them was a genetic match. Another researcher
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen tried it again with the same results.
Speaker 1: Whoever the men buried in the unmarked graves were, they
Speaker 1: were not related to the infamous outlaws. Today, some historians
Speaker 1: think that it's possible that the men inside the boarding
Speaker 1: house weren't Cassidy or sun Dance. They theorized that the
Speaker 1: Bolivian authorities killed two run of the mill robbers instead.
Speaker 1: But it gets even more intriguing. Residents of Bags, Wyoming
Speaker 1: say Cassidy visited there in nineteen twenty four, driving a
Speaker 1: Ford Model tee around town. Cassidy's surviving family said that
Speaker 1: they had seen him several times, and those in Cassidy's
Speaker 1: hometown of Circleville claimed that they saw him and his
Speaker 1: brother Mark driving around in the same Ford. Cassidy's sister
Speaker 1: Lula told reporters that she remembered his return clearly. It
Speaker 1: was nineteen twenty four and he had driven up in
Speaker 1: a Ford Model tea. Later that day, she and her
Speaker 1: brother sat together eating blueberry pie. Lula said that her
Speaker 1: brother regretted the mess that he had made of his
Speaker 1: life and for disappointing their mother. And when he died
Speaker 1: on an autumn day in nineteen thirty seven from pneumonia,
Speaker 1: the family made a pact tell no one where they
Speaker 1: had buried him. He'd been chased all his life, and
Speaker 1: they thought that he deserved to rest in peace. Now
Speaker 1: there's no word on whatever happened to Sundance Kid or
Speaker 1: his girlfriend at a place. In her book, Butch Cassidy
Speaker 1: my brother, Lula claims that the pair went straight after
Speaker 1: that night in Bolivia. The truth remains a mystery to
Speaker 1: this day. Tales of Butch Cassidy living out the rest
Speaker 1: of his days under a fake name still circulate like
Speaker 1: dust in a sandstorm, passed along from family to family
Speaker 1: and generation to generation. Wherever Butch Cassidy is buried, we
Speaker 1: may never know. Lula was his last surviving sibling. She
Speaker 1: passed away at the the ripe old age of ninety
Speaker 1: six back in nineteen eighty, taking the answers to the
Speaker 1: mystery to the grave. There are few legendary characters that
Speaker 1: embody the Wild West. Like Butch Cassidy and the Sun
Speaker 1: Dance Kid. Between their robin hood esque reputation, massive success,
Speaker 1: and mysterious ending, their story has all the ingredients necessary
Speaker 1: to make a legend. But they aren't the only ones.
Speaker 1: And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break,
Speaker 1: my teammates Ali Stead will tell you all about one
Speaker 1: more Wild West legend.
Speaker 2: Prospector Ed Schefflin had been warned. Soldiers at an Arizona
Speaker 2: Army outpost told him he'd find nothing except his own
Speaker 2: tombstone near the Dragoon Mountains in eighteen seventy seven. They
Speaker 2: called the area goose Flats, and Ed ignored their warning.
Speaker 2: As it turned out, he didn't find his tombstone out there,
Speaker 2: he did find something else, something better. He found silver
Speaker 2: and soon founded a mine, ironically naming a Tombstone. By
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty, settlers named a nearby town Tombstone after Ed's mine.
Speaker 2: Home to over one hundred saloons, fourteen gambling houses, a
Speaker 2: dance hall, and a popular red light district, the town
Speaker 2: became one of the West's wealthiest and most populated. Tombstone
Speaker 2: was very new, and like many Western mining towns, the
Speaker 2: influx of outlaws and wrestlers made it difficult for lawmen
Speaker 2: to keep the peace. Everyone carried a gun and the
Speaker 2: townsfolk were no strangers to violence. To make Tombstone a
Speaker 2: safer place to live, the town decided to name a
Speaker 2: new marshal in eighteen eighty one, and they chose Virgil Irp.
Speaker 2: Virgil and his brothers Wyatt, Morgan and James, had moved
Speaker 2: to Tombstone in December eighteen seventy nine. Wyatt loved boomtowns
Speaker 2: and gambling, so it was little surprised that the brothers
Speaker 2: opened a few saloons and brothels, though Virgil also found
Speaker 2: work as a bank guard. Wyatt brought his friend and
Speaker 2: fellow gambler, Doc Holiday, into the fold, and the group
Speaker 2: quickly gained a reputation for their ruthlessness and determination to
Speaker 2: keep the peace by any means necessary. But not everyone
Speaker 2: liked the IRPs or the way they ran the town.
Speaker 2: On the outskirts of Tombstone were ranches belonging to the
Speaker 2: Clantons and the mclory's. The two groups loosely formed a
Speaker 2: band of outlaws known as the Cowboys. Being thieves and rustlers,
Speaker 2: the cowboys constantly challenged the Rps for control over the town.
Speaker 2: The townsfolk knew this and watched a storm brewing between
Speaker 2: the lawmen and the outlaws. One night in late October
Speaker 2: of eighteen eighty one, Doc Holliday and one of the
Speaker 2: cowboys got into a heated argument. Outnumbered and underprepared, Ike
Speaker 2: Clanton stormed off, telling Wyater that he and the others
Speaker 2: would be ready for him, his brothers, and Holiday in
Speaker 2: the morning. It was a threat that Clantons made good on.
Speaker 2: They arrived the next morning with the full intent of
Speaker 2: causing trouble, and fully armed. Gunfights broke out across the town.
Speaker 2: Virgil and Morgan caught and disarmed Ike and dragged him
Speaker 2: before a judge, but he was only fined and then released.
Speaker 2: Ike's younger brother and the Mcloryes arrived later that day.
Speaker 2: Intent on retaliation. The group headed to the Ok Corral,
Speaker 2: where witnesses heard them talking about killing the IRPs and Holiday.
Speaker 2: The IRPs decided they'd had enough of the gangs and
Speaker 2: made their way to confront them. The weather was cold
Speaker 2: that afternoon as the IRPs and Holidays strode down the street,
Speaker 2: their long black coats rustling in the wind. Residents stood
Speaker 2: quietly as the lawmen passed. Others peeked out from cracks
Speaker 2: and doorways and behind curtains at the windows. Under a
Speaker 2: clear sky, a storm was brewing. As the two groups
Speaker 2: faced each other, witnesses held their breaths. No one was
Speaker 2: expecting the confrontation to end well, as the IRPs and
Speaker 2: Holiday were easily outnumbered. Completely undeterred, Virgil demanded the cowboys
Speaker 2: drop their weapons. The cowboys scoffed and refused, not so politely.
Speaker 2: Clinton drew his gun. The IRPs and Holiday quickly drew Theirs,
Speaker 2: and the shootout began. No one knows who fired first,
Speaker 2: but that didn't matter. Bullets whizzed through the air and
Speaker 2: bystanders ran for cover. When the dust settled, Billy Clanton,
Speaker 2: Frank McLaury, and Tom McLaury lay dead. Ike Clanton and
Speaker 2: two other cowboys escaped unharmed, though Doc Holliday and the
Speaker 2: Earps survived. Only Wyatt remained uninjured. The shootout lasted less
Speaker 2: than thirty seconds, but its impact was only just beginning.
Speaker 2: Ike Clanton claimed the IRPs had shot down his family
Speaker 2: and the two mclory boys in cold blood, but by
Speaker 2: Tombstone law, the ERPs were within their rights to shoot
Speaker 2: anyone who was armed and threatening violence, and after a hearing,
Speaker 2: a judge acquitted the ERPs and Holiday. But the feud
Speaker 2: didn't end there. Outlaws ambushed Vigil on December twenty eighth
Speaker 2: of eighteen Needy one. They shot him in the back,
Speaker 2: and he survived, but he was left maimed. The following March,
Speaker 2: Morgan was shot and killed while playing pool. Not long afterwards,
Speaker 2: Whyat became a US Deputy Marshal. Seeking justice, or some argue, vengeance,
Speaker 2: he deputized Doc Holliday, and the pair set out to
Speaker 2: find Morgan's killers. For those who love a more pendantic
Speaker 2: and picky approach to their folklore, it must be said
Speaker 2: that the actual shootout occurred on Fremont Street, about six
Speaker 2: doors down from the Ok Corral. Even still, this was
Speaker 2: a moment that had become a symbol of the Wild West,
Speaker 2: one that has been told and retold throughout the years.
Speaker 2: Accurate or not, this piece of American folklore will most
Speaker 2: likely live on for decades to come.
Speaker 1: Grimm and Mount Presents The Wild West was executive produced
Speaker 1: by me Aaron Manky and hosted by Aaron Mankey and
Speaker 1: Alexandra Steed. Writing for this season was provided by Michelle Mudo,
Speaker 1: with research by Alexandra Steed, Sam Elberti, Cassandra de Alba,
Speaker 1: and Harry Marx. Fact Checking was performed by Jamie Vargas,
Speaker 1: with sensitivity reading by Stacy Parshall Jensen. Production assistance was
Speaker 1: provided by Josh Stain, Jesse Funk, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick.
Speaker 1: To learn more about this and other shows from Grim
Speaker 1: and Mild and iHeartRadio, visit Grimandmild dot com