What Hollywood never told you, this is what really happened!

Gunfight At The OK Corral

Let me take you back to a cold, windy, overcast day, October 26 1881. This is the re-creation of the famous OK Corral Gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. The way it happened!

Let me set the scene: The night before in the Earps presence, Doc Holliday had a verbal confrontation and began threatening and openly challenging the life of an un-armed Ike Clanton. The next morning Ike Clanton armed himself in self defense and went looking for Holliday’s challenge. Before Ike could find Holliday, Virgil and Morgan Earp snuck up on Ike and buffaloed (pistol whipped) him to the ground. He was taken to court and fined $27.50 for carrying firearms in city limits. To no avail, Ike was claiming self defense, because of Holliday’s threats against his life. Mean time, Ike’s younger brother Billy and Frank McLaury ride into Tombstone to hear of the trouble.
 
 

Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Claiborne are seen outside the Gun shop on Fourth Street. Here Frank McLaury begins to show his anger as he learns that his brother Tom has also been buffaloed by Wyatt Earp for supporting Ike Clanton’s claims of self defense.
 
 

Meanwhile, the Earps brothers (Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil) are joined in Haffords Saloon by J.H. "Doc" Holliday. This is where Tombstone Chief of Police Virgil Earp committed an injudicious and censurable act. If Virgil Earp really wanted to keep peace as he stated, he would not have asked Doc Holliday, the town gambling drunk and known trouble maker to help him and his brothers disarm the cowboys. Especially when the night before, Virgil witnessed the verbal confrontation between "Doc" and Ike Clanton. It is my opinion that this injudicious act is why the Earps should have been held responsible for the m.urders of my cousin Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers.
 
 

Here Sheriff Johnny Behan converses with the Cowboys. He tells them "I don’t want any trouble boys, let me have your weapons." Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury respond and show the Sheriff that they are unarmed. Billy Clanton is armed but tells the Sheriff he’s getting ready to leave town. An angry Frank McLaury says, "I ain’t given up my weapons till you disarm the Earps, they have been threatening to kill us."

Here the Earps and Doc Holliday confront the four cowboys, only two of the cowboys are armed. Ike Clanton announces he's unarmed and tries to stop any type of confrontation. Tom McLaury opens his vest to show he's not armed. As Virgil Earp verbally tries to calm everything down, Doc Holliday and Morgan Earp murderously open fire on the cowboys. Here in the background, you can see Ike Clanton, still bleeding from the head, running for his life, just as the gunfight begins.

This is only a brief review of what really happened.  See our history section for more indepth history, testimony re-visited and more...

I would like to thank the Boothill Gunslingers for posing for these pictures. The Boothill Gunslingers are a local Tombstone performance group that provides tourists with gunfight reenactments in the famous OK Corral.