![]() ![]() Throughout the morning, various members of the vigilante businessmen's Citizens Safety Committee volunteered to intervene in the conflict, but Marshal Virgil Earp, seeking to avoid the involvement of armed citizens, respectfully declined their offers. According to historian Paula Marks, County Sheriff Behan insisted, "There is to be trouble between the Clanton and the Earp boys today." GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL PARTICIPANTS SERIESAfter a long night of poker that ended in an exchange of harsh words and a series of small scuffles, a confrontation appeared to be inevitable. Tensions between the two camps erupted in violence on October 26, 1881, in a narrow vacant lot behind the O.K. The Earp faction – Wyatt, his brothers Virgil, Morgan, and Warren, and their friend Doc Holliday – had the backing of Tombstone's Republican business elite, including Mayor John Clum (editor of The Tombstone Epitaph newspaper), mining magnate E.B. These "Cowboys" were Democrats with strong ties to Texas and were supported by Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan. The ranchers, who sold meat to the town and nearby Fort Huachuca, often "supplemented" their income by rustling cattle. Tombstone soon became the center of a feud which pitted a group of prominent ranchers headed by the Clanton and McLaury families against a coalition of Tombstone businessmen represented by the Earps. To provide protection and reduce crime and violence, Tombstone's town leaders sought out men like Wyatt Earp, who had built his reputation as a gunfighter and lawman in Dodge City. Profits from the mines created a business-friendly town center with a pronounced need for law enforcement officers to maintain justice and order. With this rapid influx of newcomers, Tombstone's fledgling social and political infrastructure began to take shape. Between 18, Tombstone's population exploded from a handful of prospectors to nearly 6,000 residents. The story began in 1877, when Ed Schieffelin's discovery of significant veins of silver ore in southeastern Arizona's Cochise County held out alluring promises of wealth and opportunity for enterprising people from all walks of life. Each faction brought its economic, political, and social conflicts to the Arizona Territory – and to the Gunfight at the O.K. Wealthy Northern mine owners and businessmen jockeyed with Southern cowboys from Texas for control and power. Boomtowns like Tombstone provided fertile ground for the continuation of the war's sectional strife in the Western territories. After the Civil War, rapid growth in the American industrial economy spurred an interest in Westward expansion. But the historical backdrop for this deadly tension is far more complex. ![]() Today we frame this event as a legendary example of Western vigilante justice, where lawmen preserving the peace faced down cattle rustlers suspected of robbing a Wells Fargo stagecoach. The gunbattle between the Earps – lead by Marshal Virgil Earp, his brothers Wyatt and Morgan and their friend, Doc Holliday – and the Clanton-McLaury gang left Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers dead and Virgil, Morgan, and Doc wounded. In a fateful thirty seconds, nearly thirty shots were fired at close range. Around the corner, in a narrow vacant lot behind the O.K. ![]() On the cold afternoon of October 26, 1881, four men in long black coats strode purposefully down the dusty Fremont Street. ![]()
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