Prelude to a Travesty

Taking a look at the day leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Corral

While the gunfight itself gets plenty of scrutinizing, the events beforehand, and after, are often viewed with significantly less interest. In order to fully understand the gunfight, both should be given their own consideration. So in this post I want to lay out an easy-to-read rundown of what happened in the build up to the OK Corral Gunfight. I won’t be getting into all the nuance and contextual framing of every little tidbit (those kind of items usually warrant their own write-up when significant enough), but I do want to paint a picture here that frames the big showdown in the light of what was going on beforehand.

The immediate trouble began brewing the night before when Ike and Doc confronted each other over whether or not Doc had been clued in to a secret deal between Wyatt and Ike. The yelling became intense, as did the insults, and finally Virgil had to break it up; but not before Morgan got involved and increased Ike’s feeling of victimhood.

Eventually Wyatt headed home, but Ike caught up to him and told him there would be a fight coming. Wyatt responded by telling him that if there wasn’t any money to be made, then he wasn’t interested. This same threat from Ike was repeated to Virgil on his way home, but it came after a long evening of gambling between Virgil, Ike, Tom McLaury, John Clum, and Johnny Behan. Virgil dismissed Ike and proceeded to bed, while Ike proceeded to prolong his evening of miscreance.

Around 9am Virgil was awoken by deputy Bronk, letting him know that Ike Clanton was storming around town with a rifle letting everyone know that he was looking for the Earps. It’s been widely accepted that Ike was drunk and had been up all night drinking and gambling, but lately some have made the argument that there has been no testimony to Ike’s state of inebriation. While it’s true that we have no one on record declaring Ike as drunk, it’s hardly the behavior of a sober man to stay up all night and spend his morning with a loaded weapon telling townspeople how he intends to shoot it out with the local lawmen. So most likely the lack of an official statement on Ike’s inebriated state is due to the fact that no one ever felt that it needed stating.

The first sightings of Ike on his morning sojourn were Boyle at his saloon, telling Ike to put away his gun or he was going to be in trouble, and about the same time, Mrs. Fly reporting he had stormed into Fly’s Boarding House looking for Doc. Still armed, of course.

Eventually Virgil made his appearance on the streets and immediately began fielding reports of Ike’s behavior. It seemed that Ike had made no intention to camouflage his attack, as everyone in town seemed to be aware that trouble was brewing. When Virgil finally found Ike, he was, sure enough, stalking the streets with gun in hand. Virgil caught up to him and struck him upon the head with the butt of his gun, a move referred to as “buffaloing”, and then removed his rifle and dragged him to the courthouse to be fined for his unlawful behavior.

In the courtroom, while waiting for the justice to show up and assess the fine, Ike continued his bluster, stating he only needed “four feet of ground”. Wyatt and Morgan were feeling fed up with Ike’s antagonism and called him out on his claims. Before things could erupt, however, Justice Wallace ordered the participants, Wyatt and Morgan included, to settle down or he would fine them all.

Shortly after, Wyatt encountered Tom McLaury on the street. Words were exchanged and Tom was swiftly buffaloed by the increasingly impatient Wyatt. As he stormed off, some testified that Wyatt was grumbling how he would be justified in shooting Tom and not just knocking him down. Some witnesses to the event felt that Wyatt was being a bit savage, but others felt he exercised great restraint in only subduing Tom McLaury, as opposed to resorting to gunplay.

Things quieted down momentarily and the Earps and Cow-Boys stayed away from each other. But once Frank McLaury (older brother to Tom), and Billy Clanton (younger brother to Ike), showed up in town things began to boil once again. Frank was just checking into the Grand Hotel, which was a cow-boy hot spot, when Billy Claiborne caught up to him and told him about how Wyatt had struck Tom down. Frank was confused about the actions and reportedly said that he was going to get the boys out of town right away. However, it is important to note that the only testimony to Franks intent to quickly leave town was from one of the cow-boy cohorts, and given his refusal to surrender his guns and hanging around for quite a while, it could be questioned if he ever really was in a hurry to get going.

Curiously, and perhaps innocently, perhaps not, quickly getting out of town meant all of the cow-boys stopping in at Spangenberg’s gun shop to load up on ammunition. This in itself is absolutely fine, but given the context it was, at best, a very unfortunate and misguided pit stop. But what happened next possibly serves to show the cow-boys intent to antagonize and Wyatt’s intent to stand up to the law-breakers regardless of the danger involved.

Frank McLaury, when entering the gun shop, had decided to bring his horse with him. This was, of course, against the law, and immediately caught the attention of Wyatt, who had already been keeping an eye on the miscreants. With no back up, and apparently no concern for his safety, he walked right up to the cow-boy horse, whose owner, keep in mind, was inside the store loading his gun, and grabbed him by the reins and walked him down off the sidewalk. Frank McLaury came out of the store, protesting Wyatt’s seizure of his horse, who then followed up by scolding him for his carelessness with his equine friend.

Wyatt walked away, but only after surely making an impression that the cow-boys weren’t going to have their run of the town that day.

The Earp brothers eventually wound up at the corner of fourth and Allen, standing around in front of Hafford’s saloon where they could keep a loose eye on the cow-boys movements. It was then that Johnny Behan, the county sheriff, inserted himself into the day’s drama. Having been told of the building tensions around town while getting his daily shave, he wrapped up and found the Earp boys congregated on the corner. He approached Virgil Earp, which would be the natural process as he was the City Marshal and the violations of law were under his purview. Virgil then updated Behan on his personal perspective of things, essentially that there was a growing number of cow-boys in town, centering on Ike, who had been making threats throughout most of the day. He went on to clarify that all he wanted was for the cow-boy crowd to put up their arms while they were in town, or, in lieu of that, leaving town.

Johnny departed the bunch and headed to find the Clanton’s and McLaury’s with the high-minded notion of settling the whole affair and preventing any real harm. While he was off doing that, however, Virgil continued to be approached by towns people either admonishing him to do his job and put a stop to the cow-boys defiance of local laws, or to offer him support in arresting audacious law-breakers. The fact of it was, though, that Virgil was in a tight spot. They sincerely looked as though they may be heading out of town, but they weren’t doing a very swift job of it, and could likewise be seen as flaunting their disregard for the town’s pursuit of order.

It was after the cow-boys had loaded up on ammo and weapons at Spangenberg’s that they headed into the Corral on Allen street, between 3rd and 4th, (and partly owned by and Johnny Behan), in order to retrieve their horses. This certainly forwarded the idea that they were about to leave town, as Virgil and his brothers waited up the road. Doc Holliday had come to join the family gathering and felt it was his duty to support the brothers that he considered friends. Some have considered it an unwise decision for Virgil to recruit Doc, but when facing men with guns who are threatening your lives, it’s good to have someone who is determined to be at your side; it’s reasonable to believe they’ll prove more reliable than anonymous vigilance committee members.

Eventually Virgil grew tired of waiting. He had recently been informed, by one of many townspeople who felt it was their duty to report to the City Marshal everything the “bad guys” were doing, that they had relocated to an empty lot behind the OK Corral. At first he said that as long as they stayed there and didn’t come out on the streets then he would not approach them, but as they lingered for too long, Virgil decided it was time to act and end the nonsense.

It’s also important to be aware that the place the cow-boys were congregated was just outside the door of where Doc Holliday was rooming. Given that Ike had been there earlier in the day looking for Doc, with violence ‘a forethought, it doesn’t help the cow-boy case that they chose to make a prolonged pitstop at the place he was presently calling home. It seems unlikely that they would have been trying a hit on the dentist at this point in time, as so many people had their eyes attuned to the unfolding drama, but it could be that they simply wanted to harass and antagonize. Regardless, the question has to be asked, why did they not stay in the OK Corral alley where they would have been legal to wait? Why did they make a point to move to where Ike had previously advertised his wrath? No one knows for sure, but it augured ill for the Clanton’s and McLaury’s.

Back up the block on Freemont and around the corner on 4th, Virgil decided the waiting was over. The cow-boys had been given enough time, and Behan had been allowed enough opportunity to produce a result. With reports of the outlaws still wearing their guns and milling about down by the photo studio, Virgil led his specially appointed posse towards history.

After turning left from fourth street on to Freemont, Behan spotted the city lawmen approaching. He left Frank McLaury in the lot where he had refused to surrender his guns and demanded first that the lawmen give up their guns. Apparently not wishing to explain to Frank the stark silliness and illogical standing of his demand, he turned to cut off the Earp party before they reached Fly’s. Attempting to give them pause he warned them that if they continued they would be murdered. When that didn’t break their stride he took a chance on an intentional lie and called out that he had already disarmed the men. This statement caused the lawmen to then ease up on their pistol grips and relax a bit, not realizing that Behan had exaggerated his accomplishments for the sake of hoping to prevent an outburst.

One they arrived, Billy Claiborne and Wes Fuller, who were part of the outlaw contingent that had joined up with the cow-boy party, fled the area, and Behan ducked inside Fly’s. What happened next was the most famous gunfight in probably all of American history. When all the events of the day are recounted, it’s easy to see why such an explosion was nearly inevitable.