About the Series
The gunfight at the O.K. Corral has been portrayed in
numerous Western films. It has come to symbolize the struggle
between legal authority and banditry and rustling in frontier
towns of the Old West, where law enforcement was often weak or
nonexistent.
The three Earp brothers and "Doc" Holliday were eventually
exonerated of the killings, but assassinations and assassination
attempts against the Earps over the next six months led to a
series of killings and retributions, often with federal and
county lawmen supporting different sides of the conflict. The
series of battles became known as the Earp Vendetta Ride.
Hugh O'brian portrayed Wyatt Earp in one of the many Western TV
Series that were running at the time.
The Real Wyatt Earp
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Hugh O'Brian as
Wyatt Earp
Tombstone, Arizona 1881
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a gunfight that took
place on October 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona Territory of the
United States. Despite its name, the gunfight did not actually
take place at the O.K. Corral but in a vacant lot next to
Camillus Fly's photography studio, six doors down Fremont Street
from the rear entrance to the O.K. Corral. Although only three
men were killed during the gunfight, it is generally regarded as
the most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West.
The immediate cause of the conflict that led up to the fight was
the arrest by Virgil Earp, acting in his capacity as deputy
federal marshal, of two rural "cowboys" for a stagecoach
robbery. Drunken threats made by another cowboy against the
Earps set them on guard, and when family and friends of the
drunken man arrived in town on horseback the next day, fully
armed, there was a misunderstanding about how and where they
should disarm according to city law. Within hours, both new
arrivals were dead, as was a cowboy standing with them, who had
illegally failed to surrender his pistol the previous day.
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