Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren Vogel bomb here, the romanticized version of
Speaker 1: the American cowboy tin stars, quick draw gunfights, saloons on
Speaker 1: dusty streets, and unending desert landscapes wouldn't hold such a
Speaker 1: firm place in her consciousness if not for the infamous
Speaker 1: showdown now known as the Gunfight at the Okay Corral.
Speaker 1: You know, the one between tough nosed law men and
Speaker 1: some hard headed outlaws in the town of Tombstone near
Speaker 1: the Mexican border in the Arizona Territory. But just to clarify,
Speaker 1: the shootout wasn't even in a corral at all. It
Speaker 1: took place in a vacant lot next to a photo
Speaker 1: studio in a boarding house. The second point of clarification,
Speaker 1: nobody ever called the standoff the Gunfight at the Okay
Speaker 1: Corral until Hollywood sunk its claws into the story with
Speaker 1: seven Burt Lancaster Kirk Douglas blockbuster titled Gunfight at the
Speaker 1: Okay Corral, which you have to admit, does sound way
Speaker 1: cooler than gunfight in a vacant lot, But in true
Speaker 1: Wild West movie fashion, the cast of the real life
Speaker 1: fight is easily broken into two groups. The good guys
Speaker 1: were the lawman in an otherwise lawless part of the
Speaker 1: Arizona territory. They were Tombstone Marshall Virgil Earth, his brothers
Speaker 1: Morgan and Wyatt, both officially special policeman, and temporary policeman
Speaker 1: John Henry doc Holiday. The bad guys were a group
Speaker 1: known as the Cowboys cal russelan horse thieven group of
Speaker 1: no good cusses. They were Billy Clayborne, brothers Ike and
Speaker 1: Billy Clinton, and brothers Frank and Tom McClory, and these
Speaker 1: two groups hated each other. Long story short. Between eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine and eighteen eighty, Tombstone's population exploded with prospectors
Speaker 1: searching for silver ore and the town needed law enforce sment.
Speaker 1: The town leaders wanted men like Virgil and Wyatt Earth
Speaker 1: because they had solid reputations as gunfighters and lawmen, but
Speaker 1: the Clayton and mclory families, who were prominent ranchers, formed
Speaker 1: their own coalition known as the Cowboys. The Cowboys didn't
Speaker 1: recognize Virgil Earp as marshal or his legal authority, and
Speaker 1: the Cowboys despised the fact that eurpened his lawmen often
Speaker 1: used possibly extra legal methods to enforce the law. In
Speaker 1: late eighty one, it was against the law to carry
Speaker 1: weapons within the Tombstone town limits. A Virgil earp let
Speaker 1: that be known to the cowboys, and that's how things
Speaker 1: started that day. After some threats and two pistol whippings
Speaker 1: by the Earps, the two groups squared off at about
Speaker 1: three pm on October. Most estimates put the two groups
Speaker 1: not much farther than six ft or two meters apart.
Speaker 1: There were plenty of handguns present. Holiday carried a shotgun
Speaker 1: before the article. This episode is based on How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: Spoke with Marshall Trimble, Arizona's official state historian. He said,
Speaker 1: when the cowboys came into town and Billy Clinton saw
Speaker 1: his brother Ike had been hit, and Frank saw his
Speaker 1: brother Tom had been cocked, they were spoiling for a fight.
Speaker 1: Then they made open threats that they were going to
Speaker 1: kill the Earth's They were overheard, and that's what saved
Speaker 1: the earps and Doc from maybe going to a murder trial.
Speaker 1: And here we jump ahead to the first hand witness
Speaker 1: account of John H. Bean. He was the sheriff of
Speaker 1: Cochise County, a political rival to the Earps, and a
Speaker 1: friend too many of the cowboys, and one of many
Speaker 1: interviewed afterward during a hearing into the gunfight. This transcript
Speaker 1: is courtesy of the Arizona Memory Project. Quote when they
Speaker 1: got to the party of cowboys, they drew their guns
Speaker 1: and said, you sons of you have been looking for
Speaker 1: a fight, and you can have it. Someone of the party,
Speaker 1: i think Marshall Arp, said throw up your hands. We
Speaker 1: are going to disarm you instantaneously. With that, the fight
Speaker 1: commenced and there was around some thirty shots fired. Dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of accounts have been written on the fight,
Speaker 1: and many relying on firsthand accounts like this. Some say
Speaker 1: that at least one of the cowboys was unarmed. Others
Speaker 1: refute that claim. The questions arose as to who fired
Speaker 1: the first shot and who shot whom, but the toll
Speaker 1: of the gunfight is not in question. Once everything had
Speaker 1: quieted down, three cowboys, Billy Clinton, just eighteen or nineteen
Speaker 1: years old at the time, and both McClory brothers were dead.
Speaker 1: The fight lasted no more than thirty seconds. The lawmen
Speaker 1: weren't without their injuries, though Tremble said In the end,
Speaker 1: Morgan Earp almost had a fatal wound. The bullet just
Speaker 1: missed his spine, but it went right clear through his back.
Speaker 1: Virgil took a hit in his leg, and Doc just
Speaker 1: got a scrape. Why it came through without a scratch,
Speaker 1: just like he does in the movies. Four days after
Speaker 1: the fight, Mike Clayton, who had fled once bullets started flying,
Speaker 1: accused the Earps and Holiday of murder and Tombstone Justice
Speaker 1: of the Peace Wells Spicer held a hearing into the
Speaker 1: throw down being back to the cowboys, but others supported
Speaker 1: the Earps and Holiday. The verdict may have hinged on
Speaker 1: the testimony of one Addie Borland, a local dressmaker, who
Speaker 1: contradicted the cowboys claim that they had their hands up
Speaker 1: and should not have been fired upon. The Spicer eventually
Speaker 1: found that the Earps and Holiday were well within their
Speaker 1: rights and declared that no trial was necessary. Mike Clayton,
Speaker 1: bent on revenging the death of his brother and the
Speaker 1: other cowboys, is generally thought to be behind the assassination
Speaker 1: attempt on Virgil Earp in December of that year and
Speaker 1: the murder of Morgan Earp, who was gunned down in
Speaker 1: a Tombsdown billiard club in early two After Morgan's killing,
Speaker 1: Wyatt Earp tracked down some of the Clayton's cohorts when
Speaker 1: killing a couple. Clayton was killed by a detective in Springerville,
Speaker 1: Arizona Territory in eighteen eighty seven while resisting arrest. Wyatt
Speaker 1: was the last of the Ok Corral survivors. He died
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles in nineteen twenty nine at age eighty.
Speaker 1: The gunfight gained near mythic status in nineteen thirty one
Speaker 1: after Stuart Lake, a former press agent for President Theodore Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: and a Hollywood writer, interviewed Wyatt and published a loose
Speaker 1: biography titled Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshal. Then came the movie
Speaker 1: and a TV series on Why Earp's life and times
Speaker 1: ran from nineteen fifty five to nineteen sixty one. Among
Speaker 1: the actors who have portrayed Wyatt are Henry Fonda in
Speaker 1: My Darling Clementine from nineteen forty six, A Burt Lancaster
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifty seven movie James Garner An Hour
Speaker 1: of the Gun in nineteen sixty seven, Kurt Russell in
Speaker 1: Tombstone in ninetee, Kevin Costner in Wide Earp in ninety four,
Speaker 1: and Bell Kilmer in wyatt Earp's Revenge in twelve. Trimble said,
Speaker 1: I think it's the psychology that people like to believe
Speaker 1: that a good guy can't be that good and why
Speaker 1: it wasn't why it had a little shady past all
Speaker 1: of them? Did I tell people these were sporting men.
Speaker 1: They ran around with prostitutes, gambled, hung out with an
Speaker 1: unsavory lot. But why it came from a good family
Speaker 1: A why it was a whole lot better than the
Speaker 1: others and he was just a product of his time.
Speaker 1: Tourists now streamed Tombstone to see re enactments, and beyond Tombstone,
Speaker 1: that face to face showdown between a lawless bunch of
Speaker 1: cowboys and a hardened bunch of law men has given
Speaker 1: Arizona and the entire West a huge part of its identity,
Speaker 1: a larger even than that for many visitors, the gunfight
Speaker 1: is a snapshot of America. A Tremble said, A gunfighters
Speaker 1: are America's rendition of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.
Speaker 1: People are fascinated by them because they had a code
Speaker 1: of their own and It's an independence, of free spirited independence.
Speaker 1: It's what everybody wishes they could be, but aren't y.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article The Okay Corral,
Speaker 1: the Gunfight of All Gunfights on how stuff works dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com and
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klain. Four more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.