Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
Speaker 1: there's Jerry. Let's get to it. Giddy up, draw that's
Speaker 1: pretty good, little pea shooter laser. That's right. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about the gunfight at the Okay Corral. I've been there?
Speaker 1: Have you ever been there? No, you've been there. What's
Speaker 1: it like? Dusty? I'll bet I was gonna say dusty hot?
Speaker 1: Were there? Tumbleweeds sure everywhere? Varmints, you wouldn't believe the varmints, wraps, gallions,
Speaker 1: that's barilla, Yeah, all that good stuff. Have you ever
Speaker 1: tasted sasaparilla? Sure, it's kind of like roop here. That's
Speaker 1: what I've always thought. But I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I think I had one back then,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember that that when I was a child.
Speaker 1: But we are talking about the gunfight at the Okay Corral,
Speaker 1: the very excuse me, famous gunfight between the the Earps
Speaker 1: and Doc Holiday and the cowboys. A very simplistic way
Speaker 1: to look at this, which was in the um. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: pretty good. How stuff works short article is, you know
Speaker 1: the Earths were the good guys. The bad guys were
Speaker 1: the other guys wrong. But there's some nuance there because
Speaker 1: the earps and I think, like most lawman of the
Speaker 1: time out west, you know, there were criminals too sometimes
Speaker 1: they were. The thing that differentiated them was the badge
Speaker 1: and the fact that they were able to enforce the law. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not to say that they were all awful people
Speaker 1: and they were horse thieves and you know, no good cusses,
Speaker 1: as this article says for the bad guys, but that
Speaker 1: was definitely, Um, I think it was kind of few
Speaker 1: and far between where you had a truly just and
Speaker 1: righteous lawman. Well so why at A he had been
Speaker 1: run out of California for horse thieving, so he was
Speaker 1: an actual horse thief. He moved to Wichita and he
Speaker 1: was a marshal there for three years before he was
Speaker 1: run out of which atall for corruption. And then he
Speaker 1: ended up in Tombstone where his brother Virgil was the
Speaker 1: marshal there. And then Wyatt and his brother Morgan became
Speaker 1: basically deputy marshals under their brother and they kind of
Speaker 1: selectively enforced the law. But when it came to those cowboys,
Speaker 1: the Clanton gang is another way to put it, Um,
Speaker 1: they enforced the law extra judiciously, very frequently. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: also had a buddy named John Henry Holiday. He's from Griffin,
Speaker 1: went by the name of doc was he, Yeah, dent.
Speaker 1: His dental office is still in Griffin. I think it's
Speaker 1: like your museum now. So he was a he was
Speaker 1: good with a gun and not shy with a trigger finger.
Speaker 1: And we should mention the bad guys, he said. The
Speaker 1: Clanton Gang was a man named Billy Claiborne, and then
Speaker 1: I can Billy Clanton and then Frank and Tom McLaury.
Speaker 1: And they weren't just like you know, low life cowboys.
Speaker 1: They were actually from wealthy ranching families from what I understand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know it was sort of a thing back
Speaker 1: in the day, which I guess you could still be
Speaker 1: a rich low life really, yeah, kidding me. They're they're everywhere. Uh,
Speaker 1: These these two groups of men did not like each
Speaker 1: other though, um for a full year. Uh in Tombstone,
Speaker 1: they really went through a population explosion when someone found
Speaker 1: not gold in them dar Hills, but silver good enough,
Speaker 1: good enough at the time, and uh, they said, we
Speaker 1: need some law enforcement. And it was literally the wild
Speaker 1: West out there at the time. I know that that
Speaker 1: word has used a lot like it's the Wild West
Speaker 1: and podcasting. Yea, with all these shootouts. You know who's
Speaker 1: quick on the draw is that Roman mars Man. That
Speaker 1: guy's good. But they went to the town leaders, and
Speaker 1: they had a lot of the town leaders on their side.
Speaker 1: They went to Verge and white ear It's like, you guys,
Speaker 1: are you know good enough? I guess yeah, you've done
Speaker 1: it before and you're not afraid to shoot someone in
Speaker 1: the face, right, So go shoot him in the face. Boys. So, um,
Speaker 1: you've got like this this uh history of of run
Speaker 1: ins between the herbs and the cowboys. There was bad
Speaker 1: blood between them. Um. I read elsewhere that Wyatt Earp
Speaker 1: had designs on becoming sheriff of a neighboring town or
Speaker 1: neighboring county, and so he wanted to make his name
Speaker 1: by bringing the Clanton gang down. So he actually went
Speaker 1: to Ike Clanton and said, hey, why don't you turn
Speaker 1: on your brother and the rest of the gang members
Speaker 1: and I'll make sure that you get off, you know,
Speaker 1: Scott free. And apparently apparently Ike was thinking about it.
Speaker 1: That was a great cattle wrestler, I think, but Ike
Speaker 1: was thinking about it, But he ended up not doing it.
Speaker 1: So why it realized that he was in a bit
Speaker 1: of a pickle here because it would harm his reputation
Speaker 1: if it was found out that he was making chunder
Speaker 1: the table deals with bandits Um. And so he decided
Speaker 1: that I needed to go the evidence against him. I
Speaker 1: needed to be rubbed out. So that's basically from what
Speaker 1: I saw that actually led to this gunfight at the
Speaker 1: Okay Corral. That the earth Boys were spoiling for a fight.
Speaker 1: They were actually stalking the Clanton gang that day. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we'll come back and talk
Speaker 1: about what happened. Not high noon, but about three o'clock.
Speaker 1: I guess it was high noon somewhere on October. All right,
Speaker 1: so here's the deal. In Tombstone. It was against the
Speaker 1: law to carry weapons in Tombstone, which is shocking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't they know about the Second Amendment? I don't know.
Speaker 1: So Virgil Earp and Virgil was the he was the
Speaker 1: marshal at the time. He said, cowboys, you know, you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to have your guns. And there was some
Speaker 1: other run ins that day. There were a couple of
Speaker 1: violent pistol whippings. H and Tom I Clanton and Tom
Speaker 1: McClary were kind of beat down by the RBS earlier
Speaker 1: in the day. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't see anything
Speaker 1: about that elsewhere. But well, it basically came to a
Speaker 1: head at about three o'clock on October. And this is
Speaker 1: crazy to think about, but the gunfight at the Okay
Speaker 1: Corral lasted about thirty seconds. There were about thirty to
Speaker 1: forty shots fired between. Mean, how many guys? Was it six? No?
Speaker 1: I think it was more like eight or nine. But
Speaker 1: estimates say that they were about six ft apart from
Speaker 1: one another. Can you imagine they were just in a
Speaker 1: little circle. Basically, he'd just be like shooting at each other.
Speaker 1: Stop quick stop. I'm surprised they all didn't end up
Speaker 1: dead A couple of them did. Um, I know that
Speaker 1: both of I think both of the Clanton brothers ended
Speaker 1: up dead, right, Billy Clanton died and then both mcclari brothers.
Speaker 1: So three of the cowboys died. Um, none of the
Speaker 1: herbs died. But Whyatt got off scott free? He had
Speaker 1: no scratches on him. Virgil almost died. He got shot
Speaker 1: through the back and just narrowly missed his spine. Right now,
Speaker 1: that was Morgan. Virgil got hit in the leg. But yeah, Morgan,
Speaker 1: it just was like a through shot. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, I'm sure that felt great. Dot got a
Speaker 1: little scrape and I think he said, like, why you
Speaker 1: know this is Kevin Costner. But yeah, that's some pretty
Speaker 1: terrible shooting right there from six right. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's basically like closing your eyes and just firing
Speaker 1: like in a direction that level of of contact. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would have seen my boot spurs running in the
Speaker 1: other direction in a zig zaggie pattern. So um. The
Speaker 1: shootout of the Okay Corral lasted thirty seconds. It was
Speaker 1: not at high noon, and another little known fact is
Speaker 1: that it wasn't even at the Okay Corral. It was
Speaker 1: in a vacant lot behind the corral, between a boarding
Speaker 1: house and a photo studio. Oh really, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think I knew that it's true. It was in an
Speaker 1: Olen mills. Afterwards, Doc Holiday went and got a picture
Speaker 1: where it's like face on and then up in the
Speaker 1: corner he like looking off into the into the moon.
Speaker 1: So here's how it apparently went down. It's like I said,
Speaker 1: those brothers are mclarie and Clinton had been pistol whipped
Speaker 1: earlier in the day. Um, the cowboys came into town
Speaker 1: pretty ticked off about this and kind of looking for
Speaker 1: a fight. So posedly, but also supposedly the RBS were
Speaker 1: just like waiting to start a fight with these guys. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually the um earps were almost charged with murder for
Speaker 1: a second there, I think Ike, you said Ike survived, right? Uh? Yes,
Speaker 1: Ike Clanton a couple of days later formally accused the
Speaker 1: Herbs of murder, basically saying that they had ambushed the cowboys.
Speaker 1: That's right. There were a lot of eye witnesses, but
Speaker 1: there was one kind of apparently really important eye witness
Speaker 1: uh named Addie Borland, and she said, uh, quote, I
Speaker 1: didn't see anyone holding up their hands. They all seemed
Speaker 1: to be firing in general, on both sides. They were
Speaker 1: firing on both sides at each other. Right. So, what
Speaker 1: the historians think actually happened is that the RBS came
Speaker 1: upon the Clantons, who were caught by surprise, and the
Speaker 1: Herbs said drop your weapons or we'll start firing, right.
Speaker 1: They actually said it out loud, but then started firing
Speaker 1: before they even had a chance to drop their weapons.
Speaker 1: The Clanton gang star, it's firing back. But again they
Speaker 1: were ambushed, they were caught by surprise, and they weren't
Speaker 1: given a chance to actually surrender. Um. And so there
Speaker 1: were kind of some things in there in the favor
Speaker 1: of a case of murder against the herbs. But the
Speaker 1: thing that got them off is that earlier witnesses had
Speaker 1: overheard the Clanton saying that they were going to kill
Speaker 1: the earps. So the RBS are like, see, this is
Speaker 1: all just self defense. Yeah, And there wasn't actual hearing
Speaker 1: because of that, um that call for murder old timing
Speaker 1: name please, justice of the piece. Well, Spicer had a
Speaker 1: hearing and he basically said, uh no, you know what,
Speaker 1: it seems to me like they were well within their
Speaker 1: rights as marshals and what they called special policemen to
Speaker 1: do their duty. And because of Addie Borland's testimony, um,
Speaker 1: and you know, I Clanton came out and he had
Speaker 1: his own testimony, but it looks like they just you know,
Speaker 1: it's frontier justice. They sided on the quote unquote law. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I Clinton said that he and his brother
Speaker 1: and gang members had their hands up and we're still
Speaker 1: fired upon and at least one of them might not
Speaker 1: have had a weapon, depending on who you asked on
Speaker 1: the cowboys side. So that's how it went down. The
Speaker 1: gunfight at the Ok Corral in a vacant lot at
Speaker 1: three pm, that's right. And later on there was an
Speaker 1: attempt assassination attempt on Virgil Earth in December of that
Speaker 1: same year. Morgan Earp was murdered and a billiard club
Speaker 1: in early eighty two, and everyone is cycle this is
Speaker 1: clearly the work of Clanton, although who knows, because it's
Speaker 1: frontier justice, it could have been anything. He could have
Speaker 1: snored too loud. I'm sure the brothers had more more
Speaker 1: enemies than just I Clanton, but people still suspect that
Speaker 1: it was him. And as for Clanton, he was killed
Speaker 1: and seven in the Arizona Territory by a detective and
Speaker 1: Wyatt Earp lived until eighteen to the ripled age of
Speaker 1: eighty where he died. Where else Los Angeles, where he
Speaker 1: was a DJ and a sometime music producer. That's funny.
Speaker 1: That's it for Short Stuff, everybody. If you want to
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