September 14, 2009 • 18 mins
The infamous shootout at the OK Corral has been immortalized in American culture -- but what's the real story behind the legend? Join Katie and Sarah as they explore the events that led up to this famous shootout in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert, joined today by Sarah Dowdy. How are you, Sarah,
I'm good, Katie. I'm excited about this gun fight. Well,
(00:21):
and thank you to the listener who sent us in
the request. John in South Saint Paul, Minnesota said he
could not wait to hear all about the gunfight at
the Okay Corral. So we're gonna do a little with
busting and um go through the shootout. Yeah. So our
story takes place in Tombstone, Arizona, which was a boom
(00:42):
town in the eighteen eighties and probably if it wasn't
for this gunfight, it would be a ghost town today.
But um in the in eighteen seventy nine, prospector finds
silver um and he's warned by a passing soldier that
the only thing you're going to find in those hills
as your own tombstone. And he showed him, didn't he.
(01:07):
The town grew from one hundred people to seven thousand
people in two years because of all the silver mining,
and it was quite the place for a lot of
rough and lawless horse wrestlers, bandits. They had a big
red light district, lots of saloons and bars. And there
are two key parties in Tombstone in eighteen eighteen eighty one,
(01:29):
the Earps and the cowboys. And you've probably heard of
the Herbs because of Whyatt Earp, but it wasn't just him.
He had some brothers. Why It worked a security at
a saloon. James was a car dealer in a bartender
and his brother's Virgil and Morgan, guarded stage coaches. And
Virgil was also a deputy U s Marshal while Wyatt
was a deputy sheriff. And the cowboys, on the other hand,
(01:51):
were pretty lawless, not the heroes of movies that we
don't think they were hill racing. We've got Clanton and
Bill Clinton, who are especially notorious, and we have Tom
and Frank mclowery, two sets of brothers who liked hanging
out with horse wrestler. So the trouble starts in a
(02:12):
summer of eighteen eighty when Virgil Earp goes to his
brother's Wyatt and Morgan and says that there were men
who stole six mules from an army outpost. So they
go on the lookout and they find the horses at
the mcclowery ranch and the brands have been changed so
they no longer look like they belonged to the army.
And Frank mcclawery is having none of it and tells him,
(02:32):
you know, he's just a deputy u s Marshal and
get off my properties your concern and not accepting the
legal positions. So a little bit of trouble starts there, Yeah,
and troubles bruin on another front, with Wyatt Earp going
up against Johnny Bean, who is kind of a cowboy
type more than the law abiding type, over a woman
(02:56):
Josephine Marcus, and over the sheriff position, right, and Josephine
first picked Johnny, but she ended up married to Wyatt
for about fifty years. That wasn't until later, but both
men wanted to be appointed sheriff of the state, because
that's how that worked, and whyatt ended up dropping out
of the race because he could tell the governor was
leaning much more towards Johnny, and Johnny told him that
(03:18):
he would give him a lesser appointment, so he thought, okay,
you know, I'll drop out, and that didn't work out.
So these guys have been gripped in a professional and
romantic competition. So there's a lot of resentment from the start. Yes,
So in March of one the Tombstone Benson's stage coach
is held up and twenty six thousand dollars of stolen,
(03:41):
and the driver and the passenger are both killed, and
Virgil Earp ends up leading a posse to hunt down
the people who robbed it, and he brings in his
brothers of course, Wyatt and Morgan, along with Doc Holiday,
who I'm sure everyone has heard of him. I didn't
know this, but he used to be a dent which
and he was how related to Margaret Mitchell, which I
(04:05):
found out when I was touring the Hop from Georgia. Anyways,
Doc holidays in Virgil Earp's posse. Um Sheriff Being also
leads a posse. The Earth Group finds a guy who
confesses to this stagecoach hold up, though, and they turn
him over to the sheriff. He ends up escaping. There's
some question as to whether his jail cell is even locked,
(04:28):
did be in just let him escape and why it. Obviously,
no fan of Being suspects that he might have been
in on it right, and his past doesn't even Yeah,
they don't even get their reward, so they're they're pretty
piste off at this point. So according to the story,
whyatt Earp makes a deal with Ike Clanton of the
(04:50):
infamous Clintons that we mentioned earlier, and he says that
if Ike will give him information about who did the robbery,
then why it will make sure that he gets the
reward from well spargoward. And these are two guys who
would want to have no professional association with each other,
you wouldn't They neither would want their name linked to
(05:11):
the other. One is the semi law abiding man, the
other's the cowboy U. So this deal is very under
the table. Well, and whyatt thought that way he could
make the arrest and he would look good, you know,
unlike Johnny Bean and Clanton just wanted the money and
or to set up a trap for why the part
still unshore. Unfortunately, the actual robbers of the stagecoach are
(05:36):
killed in a gunfight in New Mexico, so the deal
isn't even there's no point. So in October of eight one,
Clanton and Doc Holiday, which remember on opposite sides of
this particular conflict, are both at the Alhambra Saloon. And
historians don't know whether Clanton planned this meeting because he
(05:57):
wanted reassurance that why it wasn't going to turn him in,
or if Whyatt set it up to scare Ike into
behaving because Doc Holiday was not the kind of man
you wanted to mess with. But either way, the meeting
does not go well and the two start trading insults
and they end up both getting kicked out by security
um interestingly enough, Morgan Earp Uh and the confrontation kind
(06:21):
of carries on through the night though, even though they're
no longer in the saloon, Right and Ike ends up
in an all night poker game at another saloon with
Johnny b. N, Virgil Earp, and Tomic Lowry, which it
is quite the motley crew because again they're all in
opposite sides, and it just keeps going, the trading of
insults and death threats. Even right Ike is. Ike is
(06:43):
saying some pretty nasty stuff about the Earth's all around
town and the next morning he's still talking about Doc
Holiday and the Earps and they find out and they're
not pleased now and they actually end up arresting him
up for illegally carrying a firearm in public, which seems
like kind of a low blow because they were all
(07:05):
doing that and they just wanted a pretense. Yeah, definitely,
um and Wider joins into the party to taunt Ike
and just this he calls him a damn dirty calfie.
So the whole thing is escalating out of control, and
even why it runs into Tom mclowery, one of the
other cowboys when he's leaving the courtroom and wax him
(07:27):
over the head with his gun. So you know, the
lawmen are not doing their part to to bring the
turn the fire down on this fight that's brewing well,
and news is traveling fast. So Billy Clinton and Frank
mcclowry here about everything that's going on, and they decide
they're having none of it, and they buy a bunch
of bullets and set up a meeting and a vacant
(07:49):
lot on Fremont Street, which isn't actually at the Okay
Corral to discuss their plans. And when Sheriff Ban finds
out about this, he knows that this is not going
to end well, so he heads off to Fremont Street
to meet them and tries to get Frank mclowry's gun.
Frank won't let the sheriff disarm him until the Earths
(08:11):
are disarmed, which that's a I don't know, it's a
hotheaded response. Yes, it's not really very acceptable. Um, but
Ike is padded down, he doesn't have a weapon. Tom
says he's unarmed. Billy is just like I'm heading out
of town and the sheriff doesn't even bother to check him.
(08:31):
At this point, the Earth's and doc Holiday are on
their way and the sheriff tells them not to go
or they'll be killed. But he also tells them that
he's disarmed the men, which makes no sense. It is
really weird because he didn't well and it's too totally
contradictory statements. So this is where it all begins. And
there are two versions of events that were given at
(08:53):
the trial. So Katie and are going to have a
show down here. I will be playing the part of
why at Earth and I will be like Lanton. So
Wyatt Earp says that the mcclowry's and the Clinton and
the Clantons are still upset about these stolen mules, and
they've been making threats for months, and he makes this
deal with I Clanton over stage coach killings, which we
had mentioned, and on October twenty six, Doc Holiday and
(09:16):
I Clanton got into that fight and they were separated
by the RBS. And then he says that I continued
to threaten him throughout the night, and the next morning
all the brothers here that he's still threatening them, so
they arrest him and bring him to court. Tom mcclowry
starts threatening them, so why it hits him on the
head and walks away. So he says this was a
provoked attack, and he meets up with his brothers and
(09:38):
Doc Holiday and here's what. The mcclowry's and Clantons are
armed and they've gone to the Okay Corral. So at
this point the brothers are thinking about arming themselves, but
Virgil asks for help disarming them, so instead he's trying
to paint their intentions as going into the with purely
innocent attentions and let's disarm these dangerous, violen men. So
(10:01):
they walk in that direction and the sheriff walks up
to the earps and says, hey, the men have been disarmed.
You know, there's no danger here. And when they see
the men in the lot Frank mclowry and Billy Clanton
have visible guns, so you know, being wyatt EARP, I
am a bit alarmed, and I decided to get ready
(10:22):
to take out mine. Virgil asked the men to surrender
and throw up their hands, and he says, I have
come to disarm you, but Billy and Frank go for
their guns. So I as what EERP draw and fire
at Frank. But the first shots are my shot and
Billy Clanton's shot, so we're both at the same time.
I didn't provoke them, they didn't provoke me. We both
(10:43):
shot at each other, and after several shots, I Clanton
runs up grabs my arm. I push him off and
never fire at him, because again I've been told he's unarmed,
So I'm just acting in self defense here. This is
not my fault. And I thought that Tom mcclowry was armed,
we all did he and though he wasn't, and Doc
Holiday killed him, So maybe Doc shouldn't have done that,
(11:03):
But again I was acting in self defense. Just how
it went down right? Right? All right? Well, as like Clinton,
I have a different version of events. Uh. For one thing,
back of the saloon, Doc Holiday started all the trouble
it wasn't me provoking him, It was all on Doc
and Morgan RP. Instead of being this neutral party who
(11:25):
throws both of us out, he joins in to to curse,
curse me out and threatens me all right. The next
day the Earps arrest me like Clinton, take me to
court on false charges of threatening a gunfight, and Morgan
and Virgil continue to taunt me and threaten me and Um.
(11:46):
Later I see the Earps and Holiday coming down the street,
with being meeting them, telling them not to go down there,
but with all my brothers and my cowboys by now.
And when the Earps and Holiday come up they pull
out their guns. Virgil or curses us and says, you've
been looking for a fight and you can have it.
(12:08):
Those are fighting words, aren't they. Um? And the Earth's
order us to throw up our hands, and Billy Clinton
does I do. Tom mcclowry throws open his coat, says
he's disarmed, and then the shooting starts. We have our
hands up in the air where all defenseless, and the
Earth's Holiday are shooting at us, and Doc Holiday fires
(12:31):
the first shot at Tom mcclowry. Morgan shoots at Billy Clinton,
while he's holding up his hands wide up shoots at me,
and then I grab him and push him and finally
escaped to flies photo gallery with bullets whizzing around my head.
And Billy Clinton is shooting a little bit as he
lays on the ground. So when all has said and done,
(12:54):
this gunfight has lasted only thirty seconds. And at the end,
Frank mclawry is dead, Tom mcclowry is dead, Billy Clanton
is dying, and Doc Holiday, Virgil Earp, and Morgan erb
are all wounded. And Sheriff Ban tries to arrest Wyatt,
and Doc Wyatt says no, he thought the guys were unarmed,
(13:15):
because the sheriff had told him after all, and the
citizens on the scene stood stood with what And the
newspapers have a field day with this. Hundreds of people
show up to the funerals and thousands come to watch
the procession, which in a city of seven thousand is
saying a lot. And Doc Holiday was generally thought of
as a hothead, and people thought he shouldn't be involved
(13:37):
in upholding a law, period, So why was he even there?
And by October twenty nine, Clan Inspired filed first green
murder charges, so we have a preliminary hearing with the
Justice of the Peace, Well Spicer, And it should have
been a short little thing, you know, a preliminary hearing
is just a prelude to a real trial. But it
(13:58):
ended up lasting longer than a month because the herbs
that he might be sympathetic to them, more sympathetic than
a random jury would be. And this trial is crazy.
It's just all these different testimonies, all the different feuds
going on. It makes everything really suspect. So we'll just
give some highlights. Basically, the prosecution was trying to prove
(14:18):
that their men had been shot before they ever even
had a chance to get their guns while they had
their hands in the year right. Probably the most important
testimony for the prosecution was was Sheriff Bean, who said
that he asked for Frank mcglory's gun repeatedly, but he
was interrupted by the arrival of the earths. And as
far as the defense goes, they took a trickier attack.
(14:40):
Why it got to give a narrative instead of being
examined and cross examined, a little quirk of Arizona law.
So he went up there and and gave his testimony
and said he was acting in self defense as a
man of the law. And Virgil was actually examined while
he was in bed and recovery because he was still wounded,
and said that he tried to calm down Ike the
(15:02):
night before the morning of the shootout, a bunch of
people had told him that Ike and the crew were
after him and wanted to kill him and his brothers.
And he also said that they would have left the
Clantons and mcclowry's alone if they had stayed in the corral.
So we have all these different witnesses giving different accounts,
but in the end, Judge Spicer rules that there would
(15:23):
be no criminal trial. He says that the Earths were
profoundly unwise the way they went about disarming the cowboys,
but nothing criminal happened, And he also mentioned that the
Clantons mcclowery should have given up their guns because for them,
they don't like this verdict the Clantons and mcclowry's. So
(15:44):
then takes place what's called the Cowboy revenge, And the
first is an assassination attempt in a stage coach of
the mayor who had been sympathetic to the Earth's and
he jumps out to escape his own demise is the
wild West, folks, right, um. The second thing is Virgil
(16:04):
is ambushed when he's walking home from a saloon. One
of the men who ambush is him was Ike because
his hat was found on the scene, so it's an
important tip don't leave your hat an assassination attempt. And
Virgil isn't killed, but his arm is shot so full
of buck shot that it's left practically a mobile. And
(16:26):
then Morgan is shot through a window during a game
of pool and dies and his last words are, I
have played my last game of Pool's pretty deep. I
think there's some good last words. So in response to this,
why Earp starts his famous and then dead a ride.
He kills Frank Stillwell, who was a suspect in Morgan's murder.
(16:48):
He kills Indian Charlie and Curly Brocius, another suspect. And
after you've just gone and killed three people who were
never rested or anything in any way, there are a
bunch of warrant out for wide Ears arrest. So he
runs off to New Mexico and then to Colorado with
Doc Holiday and Arizona wanted him extradited, but the State
(17:08):
of Colorado refused this request and why it goes on
to live a nice long life, doesn't he He does.
He married and Ms Josephine from earlier and um. He
has a varied career. He referees heavyweight boxing matches. He
minds for gold, sells real estate, raised racehorses, ran saloons.
(17:30):
He even appeared on the sets of early Hollywood westerns,
which is fitting considering there have been so many TV
shows and movies about him, although many of them seemed
to portray him in a much more golden light than
perhaps we have. Yeah, like, maybe they just read his
testimony and not so much. Yours porite Clinton and sorry so.
(17:52):
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(18:12):
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in History Class blog on the how stuff works dot
com home page.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Katie Lambert, joined today by Sarah Dowdy. How are you, Sarah,
I'm good, Katie. I'm excited about this gun fight. Well,
(00:21):
and thank you to the listener who sent us in
the request. John in South Saint Paul, Minnesota said he
could not wait to hear all about the gunfight at
the Okay Corral. So we're gonna do a little with
busting and um go through the shootout. Yeah. So our
story takes place in Tombstone, Arizona, which was a boom
(00:42):
town in the eighteen eighties and probably if it wasn't
for this gunfight, it would be a ghost town today.
But um in the in eighteen seventy nine, prospector finds
silver um and he's warned by a passing soldier that
the only thing you're going to find in those hills
as your own tombstone. And he showed him, didn't he.
(01:07):
The town grew from one hundred people to seven thousand
people in two years because of all the silver mining,
and it was quite the place for a lot of
rough and lawless horse wrestlers, bandits. They had a big
red light district, lots of saloons and bars. And there
are two key parties in Tombstone in eighteen eighteen eighty one,
(01:29):
the Earps and the cowboys. And you've probably heard of
the Herbs because of Whyatt Earp, but it wasn't just him.
He had some brothers. Why It worked a security at
a saloon. James was a car dealer in a bartender
and his brother's Virgil and Morgan, guarded stage coaches. And
Virgil was also a deputy U s Marshal while Wyatt
was a deputy sheriff. And the cowboys, on the other hand,
(01:51):
were pretty lawless, not the heroes of movies that we
don't think they were hill racing. We've got Clanton and
Bill Clinton, who are especially notorious, and we have Tom
and Frank mclowery, two sets of brothers who liked hanging
out with horse wrestler. So the trouble starts in a
(02:12):
summer of eighteen eighty when Virgil Earp goes to his
brother's Wyatt and Morgan and says that there were men
who stole six mules from an army outpost. So they
go on the lookout and they find the horses at
the mcclowery ranch and the brands have been changed so
they no longer look like they belonged to the army.
And Frank mcclawery is having none of it and tells him,
(02:32):
you know, he's just a deputy u s Marshal and
get off my properties your concern and not accepting the
legal positions. So a little bit of trouble starts there, Yeah,
and troubles bruin on another front, with Wyatt Earp going
up against Johnny Bean, who is kind of a cowboy
type more than the law abiding type, over a woman
(02:56):
Josephine Marcus, and over the sheriff position, right, and Josephine
first picked Johnny, but she ended up married to Wyatt
for about fifty years. That wasn't until later, but both
men wanted to be appointed sheriff of the state, because
that's how that worked, and whyatt ended up dropping out
of the race because he could tell the governor was
leaning much more towards Johnny, and Johnny told him that
(03:18):
he would give him a lesser appointment, so he thought, okay,
you know, I'll drop out, and that didn't work out.
So these guys have been gripped in a professional and
romantic competition. So there's a lot of resentment from the start. Yes,
So in March of one the Tombstone Benson's stage coach
is held up and twenty six thousand dollars of stolen,
(03:41):
and the driver and the passenger are both killed, and
Virgil Earp ends up leading a posse to hunt down
the people who robbed it, and he brings in his
brothers of course, Wyatt and Morgan, along with Doc Holiday,
who I'm sure everyone has heard of him. I didn't
know this, but he used to be a dent which
and he was how related to Margaret Mitchell, which I
(04:05):
found out when I was touring the Hop from Georgia. Anyways,
Doc holidays in Virgil Earp's posse. Um Sheriff Being also
leads a posse. The Earth Group finds a guy who
confesses to this stagecoach hold up, though, and they turn
him over to the sheriff. He ends up escaping. There's
some question as to whether his jail cell is even locked,
(04:28):
did be in just let him escape and why it. Obviously,
no fan of Being suspects that he might have been
in on it right, and his past doesn't even Yeah,
they don't even get their reward, so they're they're pretty
piste off at this point. So according to the story,
whyatt Earp makes a deal with Ike Clanton of the
(04:50):
infamous Clintons that we mentioned earlier, and he says that
if Ike will give him information about who did the robbery,
then why it will make sure that he gets the
reward from well spargoward. And these are two guys who
would want to have no professional association with each other,
you wouldn't They neither would want their name linked to
(05:11):
the other. One is the semi law abiding man, the
other's the cowboy U. So this deal is very under
the table. Well, and whyatt thought that way he could
make the arrest and he would look good, you know,
unlike Johnny Bean and Clanton just wanted the money and
or to set up a trap for why the part
still unshore. Unfortunately, the actual robbers of the stagecoach are
(05:36):
killed in a gunfight in New Mexico, so the deal
isn't even there's no point. So in October of eight one,
Clanton and Doc Holiday, which remember on opposite sides of
this particular conflict, are both at the Alhambra Saloon. And
historians don't know whether Clanton planned this meeting because he
(05:57):
wanted reassurance that why it wasn't going to turn him in,
or if Whyatt set it up to scare Ike into
behaving because Doc Holiday was not the kind of man
you wanted to mess with. But either way, the meeting
does not go well and the two start trading insults
and they end up both getting kicked out by security
um interestingly enough, Morgan Earp Uh and the confrontation kind
(06:21):
of carries on through the night though, even though they're
no longer in the saloon, Right and Ike ends up
in an all night poker game at another saloon with
Johnny b. N, Virgil Earp, and Tomic Lowry, which it
is quite the motley crew because again they're all in
opposite sides, and it just keeps going, the trading of
insults and death threats. Even right Ike is. Ike is
(06:43):
saying some pretty nasty stuff about the Earth's all around
town and the next morning he's still talking about Doc
Holiday and the Earps and they find out and they're
not pleased now and they actually end up arresting him
up for illegally carrying a firearm in public, which seems
like kind of a low blow because they were all
(07:05):
doing that and they just wanted a pretense. Yeah, definitely,
um and Wider joins into the party to taunt Ike
and just this he calls him a damn dirty calfie.
So the whole thing is escalating out of control, and
even why it runs into Tom mclowery, one of the
other cowboys when he's leaving the courtroom and wax him
(07:27):
over the head with his gun. So you know, the
lawmen are not doing their part to to bring the
turn the fire down on this fight that's brewing well,
and news is traveling fast. So Billy Clinton and Frank
mcclowry here about everything that's going on, and they decide
they're having none of it, and they buy a bunch
of bullets and set up a meeting and a vacant
(07:49):
lot on Fremont Street, which isn't actually at the Okay
Corral to discuss their plans. And when Sheriff Ban finds
out about this, he knows that this is not going
to end well, so he heads off to Fremont Street
to meet them and tries to get Frank mclowry's gun.
Frank won't let the sheriff disarm him until the Earths
(08:11):
are disarmed, which that's a I don't know, it's a
hotheaded response. Yes, it's not really very acceptable. Um, but
Ike is padded down, he doesn't have a weapon. Tom
says he's unarmed. Billy is just like I'm heading out
of town and the sheriff doesn't even bother to check him.
(08:31):
At this point, the Earth's and doc Holiday are on
their way and the sheriff tells them not to go
or they'll be killed. But he also tells them that
he's disarmed the men, which makes no sense. It is
really weird because he didn't well and it's too totally
contradictory statements. So this is where it all begins. And
there are two versions of events that were given at
(08:53):
the trial. So Katie and are going to have a
show down here. I will be playing the part of
why at Earth and I will be like Lanton. So
Wyatt Earp says that the mcclowry's and the Clinton and
the Clantons are still upset about these stolen mules, and
they've been making threats for months, and he makes this
deal with I Clanton over stage coach killings, which we
had mentioned, and on October twenty six, Doc Holiday and
(09:16):
I Clanton got into that fight and they were separated
by the RBS. And then he says that I continued
to threaten him throughout the night, and the next morning
all the brothers here that he's still threatening them, so
they arrest him and bring him to court. Tom mcclowry
starts threatening them, so why it hits him on the
head and walks away. So he says this was a
provoked attack, and he meets up with his brothers and
(09:38):
Doc Holiday and here's what. The mcclowry's and Clantons are
armed and they've gone to the Okay Corral. So at
this point the brothers are thinking about arming themselves, but
Virgil asks for help disarming them, so instead he's trying
to paint their intentions as going into the with purely
innocent attentions and let's disarm these dangerous, violen men. So
(10:01):
they walk in that direction and the sheriff walks up
to the earps and says, hey, the men have been disarmed.
You know, there's no danger here. And when they see
the men in the lot Frank mclowry and Billy Clanton
have visible guns, so you know, being wyatt EARP, I
am a bit alarmed, and I decided to get ready
(10:22):
to take out mine. Virgil asked the men to surrender
and throw up their hands, and he says, I have
come to disarm you, but Billy and Frank go for
their guns. So I as what EERP draw and fire
at Frank. But the first shots are my shot and
Billy Clanton's shot, so we're both at the same time.
I didn't provoke them, they didn't provoke me. We both
(10:43):
shot at each other, and after several shots, I Clanton
runs up grabs my arm. I push him off and
never fire at him, because again I've been told he's unarmed,
So I'm just acting in self defense here. This is
not my fault. And I thought that Tom mcclowry was armed,
we all did he and though he wasn't, and Doc
Holiday killed him, So maybe Doc shouldn't have done that,
(11:03):
But again I was acting in self defense. Just how
it went down right? Right? All right? Well, as like Clinton,
I have a different version of events. Uh. For one thing,
back of the saloon, Doc Holiday started all the trouble
it wasn't me provoking him, It was all on Doc
and Morgan RP. Instead of being this neutral party who
(11:25):
throws both of us out, he joins in to to curse,
curse me out and threatens me all right. The next
day the Earps arrest me like Clinton, take me to
court on false charges of threatening a gunfight, and Morgan
and Virgil continue to taunt me and threaten me and Um.
(11:46):
Later I see the Earps and Holiday coming down the street,
with being meeting them, telling them not to go down there,
but with all my brothers and my cowboys by now.
And when the Earps and Holiday come up they pull
out their guns. Virgil or curses us and says, you've
been looking for a fight and you can have it.
(12:08):
Those are fighting words, aren't they. Um? And the Earth's
order us to throw up our hands, and Billy Clinton
does I do. Tom mcclowry throws open his coat, says
he's disarmed, and then the shooting starts. We have our
hands up in the air where all defenseless, and the
Earth's Holiday are shooting at us, and Doc Holiday fires
(12:31):
the first shot at Tom mcclowry. Morgan shoots at Billy Clinton,
while he's holding up his hands wide up shoots at me,
and then I grab him and push him and finally
escaped to flies photo gallery with bullets whizzing around my head.
And Billy Clinton is shooting a little bit as he
lays on the ground. So when all has said and done,
(12:54):
this gunfight has lasted only thirty seconds. And at the end,
Frank mclawry is dead, Tom mcclowry is dead, Billy Clanton
is dying, and Doc Holiday, Virgil Earp, and Morgan erb
are all wounded. And Sheriff Ban tries to arrest Wyatt,
and Doc Wyatt says no, he thought the guys were unarmed,
(13:15):
because the sheriff had told him after all, and the
citizens on the scene stood stood with what And the
newspapers have a field day with this. Hundreds of people
show up to the funerals and thousands come to watch
the procession, which in a city of seven thousand is
saying a lot. And Doc Holiday was generally thought of
as a hothead, and people thought he shouldn't be involved
(13:37):
in upholding a law, period, So why was he even there?
And by October twenty nine, Clan Inspired filed first green
murder charges, so we have a preliminary hearing with the
Justice of the Peace, Well Spicer, And it should have
been a short little thing, you know, a preliminary hearing
is just a prelude to a real trial. But it
(13:58):
ended up lasting longer than a month because the herbs
that he might be sympathetic to them, more sympathetic than
a random jury would be. And this trial is crazy.
It's just all these different testimonies, all the different feuds
going on. It makes everything really suspect. So we'll just
give some highlights. Basically, the prosecution was trying to prove
(14:18):
that their men had been shot before they ever even
had a chance to get their guns while they had
their hands in the year right. Probably the most important
testimony for the prosecution was was Sheriff Bean, who said
that he asked for Frank mcglory's gun repeatedly, but he
was interrupted by the arrival of the earths. And as
far as the defense goes, they took a trickier attack.
(14:40):
Why it got to give a narrative instead of being
examined and cross examined, a little quirk of Arizona law.
So he went up there and and gave his testimony
and said he was acting in self defense as a
man of the law. And Virgil was actually examined while
he was in bed and recovery because he was still wounded,
and said that he tried to calm down Ike the
(15:02):
night before the morning of the shootout, a bunch of
people had told him that Ike and the crew were
after him and wanted to kill him and his brothers.
And he also said that they would have left the
Clantons and mcclowry's alone if they had stayed in the corral.
So we have all these different witnesses giving different accounts,
but in the end, Judge Spicer rules that there would
(15:23):
be no criminal trial. He says that the Earths were
profoundly unwise the way they went about disarming the cowboys,
but nothing criminal happened, And he also mentioned that the
Clantons mcclowery should have given up their guns because for them,
they don't like this verdict the Clantons and mcclowry's. So
(15:44):
then takes place what's called the Cowboy revenge, And the
first is an assassination attempt in a stage coach of
the mayor who had been sympathetic to the Earth's and
he jumps out to escape his own demise is the
wild West, folks, right, um. The second thing is Virgil
(16:04):
is ambushed when he's walking home from a saloon. One
of the men who ambush is him was Ike because
his hat was found on the scene, so it's an
important tip don't leave your hat an assassination attempt. And
Virgil isn't killed, but his arm is shot so full
of buck shot that it's left practically a mobile. And
(16:26):
then Morgan is shot through a window during a game
of pool and dies and his last words are, I
have played my last game of Pool's pretty deep. I
think there's some good last words. So in response to this,
why Earp starts his famous and then dead a ride.
He kills Frank Stillwell, who was a suspect in Morgan's murder.
(16:48):
He kills Indian Charlie and Curly Brocius, another suspect. And
after you've just gone and killed three people who were
never rested or anything in any way, there are a
bunch of warrant out for wide Ears arrest. So he
runs off to New Mexico and then to Colorado with
Doc Holiday and Arizona wanted him extradited, but the State
(17:08):
of Colorado refused this request and why it goes on
to live a nice long life, doesn't he He does.
He married and Ms Josephine from earlier and um. He
has a varied career. He referees heavyweight boxing matches. He
minds for gold, sells real estate, raised racehorses, ran saloons.
(17:30):
He even appeared on the sets of early Hollywood westerns,
which is fitting considering there have been so many TV
shows and movies about him, although many of them seemed
to portray him in a much more golden light than
perhaps we have. Yeah, like, maybe they just read his
testimony and not so much. Yours porite Clinton and sorry so.
(17:52):
If you'd like to learn more about US Marshals and
Wild Wild West and check out our blog on the
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Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com,
(18:12):
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