History

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Map of Tombstone, AZ

On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, City Marshal Virgil Earp, his brothers Wyatt and Morgan, and Doc Holliday squared off against a group of cowboys in Tombstone, AZ. The cowboys (including Billy and Ike Clanton, Billy Claiborne, and Tom and Robert "Frank" McLaury) had menaced Tombstone and the Earps for months. The Earps and Holliday confronted the cowboys after learning they were making drunken threats against the lawmen and refused to turn in their weapons (as required by Tombstone's ordinance against wearing guns in public).

The Earps and Holliday found the cowboys in a lot behind the O.K. Corral and ordered them to surrender their guns. Gunshots rang out. When the dust settled, the McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton were dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday lay wounded, and the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" became one of the most legendary episodes in the history of the American West.

Visit the October 2016 Web page to learn more about the growth of Tombstone, AZ's population and economy from 1879 to the present, as well as the infamous confrontation at the O.K. Corral using census records and data.

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1881 Map of Tombstone, AZ.

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.