Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

This keychain was purchased at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, AZ.
My mission is just to Travel far and wide and have my adventures documented with photographs!

The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was a 30-second gunfight between an outlaw group of Cowboys and lawmen. It is generally regarded as the most famous shootout in the history of the American Wild West. The gunfight took place at about 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. It was the result of a long-simmering feud, with Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury on one side and town Marshal Virgil Earp, Special Policeman Morgan Earp, Special Policeman Wyatt Earp and temporary policeman Doc Holliday on the other side. Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were killed. Ike Clanton, who had repeatedly threatened to kill the Earps, claimed he was unarmed and ran from the fight, along with Billy Claiborne. Virgil, Morgan, and Doc Holliday were wounded, but Wyatt Earp was unharmed. The fight has come to represent a period in American Old West when the frontier was virtually an open range for outlaws, largely unopposed by law enforcement officers, who were spread thin over vast territories, leaving some areas unprotected.

The gunfight was not well known to the American public until 1931, when Stuart Lake published an initially well-received biography, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, two years after Earp's death.[1] The book was the basis for the 1946 film My Darling Clementine, directed by John Ford,[1] and the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, after which the shootout became known by that name. Since then, the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books.

Despite its name, the historic gunfight did not take place within or next to the O.K. Corral, which fronted on Allen Street and had a rear entrance lined with stalls on Fremont Street. The shootout actually took place in a narrow lot on the side of C. S. Fly's Photographic Studio on Fremont Street, six doors west of the O.K. Corral's rear entrance. Some members of the two opposing parties were initially only about 6 feet (1.8 m) apart. About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds.[2][3] Ike Clanton, whose brother Billy had been killed, filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday. The lawmen were eventually exonerated by a local justice of the peace after a 30-day preliminary hearing and then by a local grand jury.

The gunfight was not the end of the conflict. On December 28, 1881, Virgil Earp was ambushed and maimed in a murder attempt by outlaw Cowboys. On March 18, 1882, Cowboys fired from a dark alley through the glass door of a saloon and shot Morgan Earp, killing him. The suspects in both incidents furnished alibis supplied by other Cowboys and were not indicted. Wyatt Earp, newly appointed as Deputy U.S. Marshal in Cochise County, took matters into his own hands in a personal vendetta. He was pursued by county Sheriff Johnny Behan, who had received a Tucson warrant for Wyatt's shooting of Frank Stilwell.