Did Wyatt Earp have the law on his side at the OK Corral? A lot of people at the time might have disagreed, but Wyatt Earp acted legally during the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral happened on October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona. Wyatt Earp, his brothers Virgil and Morgan, and their friend Doc Holliday confronted a group of men associated with an outlaw gang called the Cowboys. The resulting gunfight lasted approximately 30 seconds, during which around 30 shots were fired. Three Cowboys were killed, while Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday were wounded. Despite its famous name, the gunfight didn’t actually happen inside the O.K. Corral. It took place in a narrow vacant lot nearby.
The town of Tombstone was only a few years old when Wyatt Earp arrived. It had been founded in 1879 by a United States Army scout who was hunting for silver. His name was Ed Schieffelin, and he found a long vein of silver in the area in 1877. He settled down to mine the vein and, as with the gold rush, more people gradually joined him. The town started out as tents but slowly grew. It was founded in 1879, and by 1880, it had a hotel and several other buildings. The population grew as well. By 1881, there were 6,000 people living in Tombstone.
Just like most frontier towns, there was a mix of people, but there were more men than women, and there were a lot of criminal elements. These criminals made money by theft, intimidation, or even murder. Wyatt Earp suggested that 3% of Tombstone were criminals like this. They were members of a gang called the Cowboys that spread across southeastern Arizona and northern Mexico.
The silver mines were profitable, and there were middle-class and wealthy people in the town. They didn’t like all of the crime, so towns like theirs often hired gunmen to protect them. Tombstone had its own lawmen, including Virgil Earp, who had arrived in 1879 as a deputy U.S. marshal and later became the town’s chief of police. His brothers Wyatt and Morgan also worked in law enforcement at various times. Wyatt’s friend Doc Holliday, a dentist and gambler, became closely associated with the Earps. Virgil was strict and enforced a “no guns” in the town policy. He arrested about 60 people a month, and his no guns policy was to stop a simple fight from turning into a murder.
The town ended up split along two lines. There were the merchants, the Earps, and the mayor on one side. And the cattle rustling cowboys with the county sheriff on the other. Things were not friendly, and the two factions had several confrontations. However, things became worse after the spring of 1881. A group of the Cowboys held up a stagecoach and killed its driver and passenger. The Clantons and McLaurys were not involved, but they knew who was. It seems that Wyatt Earp offered Ike Clanton half of the reward money if he told who killed the two people. I don’t know if Ike did give up the person, but by October he had become convinced that Wyatt Earp had told Doc Holliday Ike was a rat. Things came to a head on October 25th, the day before the gunfight, when Doc Holliday and Ike Clanton had a blazing row. The Clantons threatened the lives of Holliday and the Earps.
On the day of the gunfight, Ike Clanton had been drinking in the town all night and making threats. He was threatening to kill the Earps. Virgil Earp physically took it from him, which was a humiliation for Ike, and arrested him. Ike was soon released and went to a gun shop to get a new gun, and he met some other Cowboys. Wyatt Earp had pistol-whipped one of those cowboys, Tom McLaury, earlier in the day. The Earps were law officers, but they were also personally involved in the dispute. All of the cowboys ended up in the empty lot behind the OK Corral. Virgil went with his brothers and Doc Holliday to disarm all of the men. They knew there would probably be a confrontation.
The four lawmen faced off against the six cowboys. Who fired first and where everybody was standing is not known for certain because witness statements differ. Virgil Earp said he was there to disarm the cowboys, and then somebody shot. Within 30 seconds, Morgan Earp was shot; although he survived, five of the cowboys were killed, and Ike Clanton had run away.
The county sheriff tried to arrest the Earps and Doc Holliday, but they didn’t let him. Following the gunfight, Ike Clanton accused the Earps and Doc Holliday of murder. A preliminary hearing lasted about a month, during which numerous witnesses gave conflicting accounts. The judge, Wells Spicer, ruled that there was insufficient evidence to send the men to trial. He criticized some of Virgil Earp’s decisions, but concluded that he had been acting within his authority as a law officer. The charges were dismissed. The judge had ruled that Wyatt Earp and the other men had been legally justified, although the decision remained controversial. Many Tombstone residents continued to believe that the Earps had used unnecessary force or deliberately provoked the confrontation. Whatever public opinion, they had acted lawfully.
However, the violence didn’t end with the hearing. In December 1881, Virgil Earp was ambushed and seriously wounded, leaving him with a permanently disabled arm. Then, in March 1882, Morgan Earp was shot and killed while playing billiards. Wyatt believed the Cowboys were responsible, and he assembled a group to hunt down the men he blamed for the attacks. Several men were killed during what became known as the Earp Vendetta Ride. Unlike the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, these killings led to warrants for Wyatt and members of his group. Wyatt eventually fled to Colorado, where the governor refused to extradite him to Arizona. He never returned to Tombstone. And this is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.okcorral.com/history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunfight_at_the_O.K._Corral
https://www.history.com/articles/gunfight-ok-corral
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombstone,_Arizona
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.K._Corral_hearing_and_aftermath
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyatt_Earp
image’ By unattributed – Heritage Auction Gallery – Constable Wyatt Earp Lamar Missouri summons, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17195693