The most famous gunfight of all was over in a flash
OCTOBER 26 1881
THE most famous shoot-out in Wild West history was all over in 30 seconds!
The Gunfight At The OK Corral would be made into movies and talked about to this day.
The famous shots rang out as the climax of a simmering feud between cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury on one side, and Marshal Virgil Earp, special policemen Morgan and Wyatt Earp and temporary policeman Doc Holliday on the other.
In the late 19th century, Tombstone, Arizona was just another place where outlaws would roll into town and use
The Earps were despised by ranchers and cowboys
blunt force to try to take what they wanted, hopeful that nobody would actually stand up to them.
Considering how iconic the gunfight would become, it would actually be half a century before it gained fame when a biography was written about Wyatt Earp and all was revealed.
The three Earp brothers had all been targeted by death threats from the cowboys, who were less than happy to have such do-gooders interfere with their criminal plans.
When they started shooting at one another, Clanton was killed, as were both McLaury brothers.
All on the other side were wounded except Wyatt Earp, although he would be ambushed and maimed later in the year.
Actually, the bullets didn’t whizz around the OK Corral at all, because the gun battle happened on Fremont Street, six doors west of the corral’s entrance!
Some of the men were just six feet or so from each other and historians reckon about 30 shots were fired during those frantic 30 seconds, so it’s a wonder they weren’t all killed.
Ike Clanton would file murder charges against the Earps and Holliday, though the lawmen were eventually exonerated by a local justice of the peace.
The trouble stemmed from the growing power of city residents and the law enforcement men they hired.
To rural ranchers and cowboys, they were meddlers and should have no control of affairs outside the cities.
The Earps were despised by the ranchers and cowboys, and the feeling was very much mutual.
It was all, in other words, going to come to a head at some point, and it just so happened to be October 26, 1881.
Burt Lancaster would play Wyatt Earp in the classic 1957 movie, with Kirk Douglas in the Doc Holliday role.
There were plenty of historical inaccuracies in it, not that this bothered the crowds who filled cinemas and made it a massive hit.
Regularly ranked among the all-time greatest Western films in critics’ polls, it has stood the test of time – and all from a 30-second fight!