The Messed Up Truth About The Gunfight At The O.K. Corral

The gunfight at the O.K. Corral is a shoot-out that has come to represent the glamour and gore that defined the Wild West. Pitting the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday against the so-called Cochise County Cowboys in Tombstone, Arizona, here's the messed-up truth of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

The O.K., for "Old Kindersley Kindersley," Corral was a livery business that operated on Tombstone's Fremont Street from 1879 to 1888. Weirdly, the fight itself didn't take place in or next to the Corral as its name would suggest. Instead, it happened in a vacant lot next to C.S. Fly's Photographic Studio and Boarding House, six doors down from the corral.

Doc Holliday, the iconic dentist-turned-tubercular gunman, was a resident of the boardinghouse.

One of the fight's main instigators, Ike Clanton, took cover in the studio while shots were being fired. So did the one man who might have stopped the carnage, the sheriff of Cochise County, John Behan.

Incidentally, C.S. Fly's photographs of late nineteenth century Tombstone have become indispensable to our understanding of life in the Wild West. Fly did not, however, take any pictures of the battle or its aftermath, but he did participate in one way: he disarmed the dying Billy Clanton.

Why the shootout became associated with the O.K. Corral is still a bit of a mystery, but maybe it's because "the gunfight in the vacant lot next to C.S. Fly's Photography Studio and Boarding House" doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

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Location, location, location | 0:18
Primed for battle | 1:37
No good guys | 2:49
The stagecoach robbery | 4:09
The real hero | 5:15
Smoke gets in your eyes | 6:09
The Cowboys weren't all that | 7:16
I like Ike | 8:18
Tombstone grieved the Cowboys | 9:29
Vigilante justice | 10:13
Reporter's bias | 10:55

Видео The Messed Up Truth About The Gunfight At The O.K. Corral канала Grunge