After the infamous "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral," Tom and Robert
"Frank" McLaury (a.k.a. "McLowrey") and Billy Clanton were
buried in Tombstone's Boothill Cemetery.
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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 insolent cowboys in Tombstone, AZ. The Earps were well-known lawmen when they arrived in Tombstone in 1879, but their confrontation with the cowboys that day made them legends of the American West.
The cowboys (a gang of ranch hands, cattle rustlers, and thugs) had been menacing Tombstone and the Earps for months leading up to October's standoff. On October 26, Virgil Earp learned that the cowboys (including Billy and Ike Clanton, Billy Claiborne, and Tom and Robert "Frank" McLaury) were in town and making drunken threats. They also broke the law by refusing 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. Despite testimony that no one wanted a fight, gunshots rang out. When the dust settled, the McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton were dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday lay wounded.
Four days after the gunfight, Ike Clanton (who fled the O.K. Corral before the shooting started) filed murder charges against the Earps and Holliday. Over several weeks, Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer heard testimony from the fight's survivors and witnesses, including Cochise County Sheriff John Behan (who sided with the cowboys). On November 30, Spicer ruled that the lawmen's actions were justified and they had not broken any laws.
The conclusion of Spicer's hearing did not settle the matter for the lawmen or cowboys. On the evening of December 28, 1881, cowboys shot and wounded Virgil Earp as he walked to Tombstone's Cosmopolitan Hotel. On March 18, 1882, they murdered Morgan Earp while he played billiards. In response, Wyatt organized a posse which killed gang members Frank Stilwell, Florentino Cruz, Curly Bill Brocius, and Johnny Barnes. A fifth cowboy—Johnny Ringo— was killed in July 1882, although it is uncertain who was responsible for his death.
"Buckskin" Frank Leslie killed O.K. Corral gunfighter Billy Claiborne in self-defense outside Tombstone's Oriental Saloon on November 14, 1882. Ike Clanton "met his maker" on June 1, 1887, when Detective Jonas V. Brighton shot him during his attempted arrest for cattle rustling south of Springerville, AZ. Doc Holliday succumbed to tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs, CO, on November 8, 1887.On October 19, 1905, Virgil Earp died from pneumonia in Goldfield, NV, leaving Wyatt the sole survivor of the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral." Following a career in law enforcement, gambling, mining, and working as consultant to Hollywood movie studios, Wyatt died quietly (of a urinary tract infection) on January 13, 1929, in Los Angeles, CA.
You can learn more about the American West, Arizona, and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral using data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and other federal agencies. For example:
Western-themed tourism revived Tombstone in the 1950s, and its population rebounded from 646 in 1900,
to 1,283 in 1960. In 2010, Tombstone's population numbered 1,380.
In accordance with the terms of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, the Census Bureau ended operations in the Panama Canal Zone on October 1, 1979.
The Panama Canal Zone came under U.S. jurisdiction on November 18, 1902, and the U.S. Isthmian Canal Commission conducted its first census there in 1904. Between 1920 and 1970, the Census Bureau enumerated the Canal Zone as part of the decennial censuses.
In 1904, the Isthmian Commission reported the Canal Zone's population was 9,742. Between 1920 and
1970, the Census Bureau found that the zone's population grew from 22,858 to 44,198.
Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.
Not all cowboys were "outlaws" like Billy Clanton, Tom and Frank McLaury, or Billy Claiborne.
During the 1880 Census, thousands of law-abiding and honest cowboys worked on farms and ranches throughout the American West and Southwest.
Some examples include the 27 men who listed their occupation as "Cowboy" at the Burnett Brothers Cattle and Horse Ranch near Wichita Falls, TX; the Cook brothers in Granada, CO; and the Jose and Guadalupe Duran families of Rio Arriba County, NM.
Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Columbia Pictures released the short film, "No Census, No Feeling" starring the Three Stooges on October 4, 1940.
The film features Moe, Larry, and Curly inadvertently working as census takers after being chased into an enumerator recruiting center by an irate shopkeeper.