January 29, 2020 • 12 mins
Listen in as we detail, in short, the legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
there's Jerry. Let's get to it. Giddy up, draw that's
pretty good, little pea shooter laser. That's right. So we're
talking about the gunfight at the Okay Corral. I've been there?
Have you ever been there? No, you've been there. What's
(00:27):
it like? Dusty? I'll bet I was gonna say dusty hot?
Were there? Tumbleweeds sure everywhere? Varmints, you wouldn't believe the varmints, wraps, gallions,
that's barilla, Yeah, all that good stuff. Have you ever
tasted sasaparilla? Sure, it's kind of like roop here. That's
what I've always thought. But I don't I don't know.
I'm not sure. I think I had one back then,
(00:49):
but I don't remember that that when I was a child.
But we are talking about the gunfight at the Okay Corral,
the very excuse me, famous gunfight between the the Earps
and Doc Holiday and the cowboys. A very simplistic way
to look at this, which was in the um. Otherwise,
pretty good. How stuff works short article is, you know
(01:12):
the Earths were the good guys. The bad guys were
the other guys wrong. But there's some nuance there because
the earps and I think, like most lawman of the
time out west, you know, there were criminals too sometimes
they were. The thing that differentiated them was the badge
and the fact that they were able to enforce the law. Yeah,
(01:33):
and not to say that they were all awful people
and they were horse thieves and you know, no good cusses,
as this article says for the bad guys, but that
was definitely, Um, I think it was kind of few
and far between where you had a truly just and
righteous lawman. Well so why at A he had been
(01:53):
run out of California for horse thieving, so he was
an actual horse thief. He moved to Wichita and he
was a marshal there for three years before he was
run out of which atall for corruption. And then he
ended up in Tombstone where his brother Virgil was the
marshal there. And then Wyatt and his brother Morgan became
basically deputy marshals under their brother and they kind of
(02:15):
selectively enforced the law. But when it came to those cowboys,
the Clanton gang is another way to put it, Um,
they enforced the law extra judiciously, very frequently. Yeah. They
also had a buddy named John Henry Holiday. He's from Griffin,
went by the name of doc was he, Yeah, dent.
His dental office is still in Griffin. I think it's
(02:38):
like your museum now. So he was a he was
good with a gun and not shy with a trigger finger.
And we should mention the bad guys, he said. The
Clanton Gang was a man named Billy Claiborne, and then
I can Billy Clanton and then Frank and Tom McLaury.
And they weren't just like you know, low life cowboys.
(02:59):
They were actually from wealthy ranching families from what I understand. Yeah,
but you know it was sort of a thing back
in the day, which I guess you could still be
a rich low life really, yeah, kidding me. They're they're everywhere. Uh,
These these two groups of men did not like each
other though, um for a full year. Uh in Tombstone,
(03:21):
they really went through a population explosion when someone found
not gold in them dar Hills, but silver good enough,
good enough at the time, and uh, they said, we
need some law enforcement. And it was literally the wild
West out there at the time. I know that that
word has used a lot like it's the Wild West
(03:43):
and podcasting. Yea, with all these shootouts. You know who's
quick on the draw is that Roman mars Man. That
guy's good. But they went to the town leaders, and
they had a lot of the town leaders on their side.
They went to Verge and white ear It's like, you guys,
are you know good enough? I guess yeah, you've done
(04:05):
it before and you're not afraid to shoot someone in
the face, right, So go shoot him in the face. Boys. So, um,
you've got like this this uh history of of run
ins between the herbs and the cowboys. There was bad
blood between them. Um. I read elsewhere that Wyatt Earp
had designs on becoming sheriff of a neighboring town or
(04:29):
neighboring county, and so he wanted to make his name
by bringing the Clanton gang down. So he actually went
to Ike Clanton and said, hey, why don't you turn
on your brother and the rest of the gang members
and I'll make sure that you get off, you know,
Scott free. And apparently apparently Ike was thinking about it.
That was a great cattle wrestler, I think, but Ike
(04:51):
was thinking about it, But he ended up not doing it.
So why it realized that he was in a bit
of a pickle here because it would harm his reputation
if it was found out that he was making chunder
the table deals with bandits Um. And so he decided
that I needed to go the evidence against him. I
needed to be rubbed out. So that's basically from what
(05:15):
I saw that actually led to this gunfight at the
Okay Corral. That the earth Boys were spoiling for a fight.
They were actually stalking the Clanton gang that day. All right, well,
let's take a break and we'll come back and talk
about what happened. Not high noon, but about three o'clock.
I guess it was high noon somewhere on October. All right,
(06:07):
so here's the deal. In Tombstone. It was against the
law to carry weapons in Tombstone, which is shocking. Yeah,
don't they know about the Second Amendment? I don't know.
So Virgil Earp and Virgil was the he was the
marshal at the time. He said, cowboys, you know, you're
(06:29):
not supposed to have your guns. And there was some
other run ins that day. There were a couple of
violent pistol whippings. H and Tom I Clanton and Tom
McClary were kind of beat down by the RBS earlier
in the day. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't see anything
about that elsewhere. But well, it basically came to a
head at about three o'clock on October. And this is
(06:51):
crazy to think about, but the gunfight at the Okay
Corral lasted about thirty seconds. There were about thirty to
forty shots fired between. Mean, how many guys? Was it six? No?
I think it was more like eight or nine. But
estimates say that they were about six ft apart from
one another. Can you imagine they were just in a
(07:12):
little circle. Basically, he'd just be like shooting at each other.
Stop quick stop. I'm surprised they all didn't end up
dead A couple of them did. Um, I know that
both of I think both of the Clanton brothers ended
up dead, right, Billy Clanton died and then both mcclari brothers.
So three of the cowboys died. Um, none of the
herbs died. But Whyatt got off scott free? He had
(07:35):
no scratches on him. Virgil almost died. He got shot
through the back and just narrowly missed his spine. Right now,
that was Morgan. Virgil got hit in the leg. But yeah, Morgan,
it just was like a through shot. But I mean,
I know, I'm sure that felt great. Dot got a
little scrape and I think he said, like, why you
know this is Kevin Costner. But yeah, that's some pretty
(07:58):
terrible shooting right there from six right. So um, yeah,
that's that's basically like closing your eyes and just firing
like in a direction that level of of contact. Yeah,
you would have seen my boot spurs running in the
other direction in a zig zaggie pattern. So um. The
(08:19):
shootout of the Okay Corral lasted thirty seconds. It was
not at high noon, and another little known fact is
that it wasn't even at the Okay Corral. It was
in a vacant lot behind the corral, between a boarding
house and a photo studio. Oh really, yeah, I don't
think I knew that it's true. It was in an
Olen mills. Afterwards, Doc Holiday went and got a picture
(08:40):
where it's like face on and then up in the
corner he like looking off into the into the moon.
So here's how it apparently went down. It's like I said,
those brothers are mclarie and Clinton had been pistol whipped
earlier in the day. Um, the cowboys came into town
pretty ticked off about this and kind of looking for
a fight. So posedly, but also supposedly the RBS were
(09:04):
just like waiting to start a fight with these guys. Yeah.
Actually the um earps were almost charged with murder for
a second there, I think Ike, you said Ike survived, right? Uh? Yes,
Ike Clanton a couple of days later formally accused the
Herbs of murder, basically saying that they had ambushed the cowboys.
That's right. There were a lot of eye witnesses, but
(09:25):
there was one kind of apparently really important eye witness
uh named Addie Borland, and she said, uh, quote, I
didn't see anyone holding up their hands. They all seemed
to be firing in general, on both sides. They were
firing on both sides at each other. Right. So, what
the historians think actually happened is that the RBS came
(09:46):
upon the Clantons, who were caught by surprise, and the
Herbs said drop your weapons or we'll start firing, right.
They actually said it out loud, but then started firing
before they even had a chance to drop their weapons.
The Clanton gang star, it's firing back. But again they
were ambushed, they were caught by surprise, and they weren't
given a chance to actually surrender. Um. And so there
(10:09):
were kind of some things in there in the favor
of a case of murder against the herbs. But the
thing that got them off is that earlier witnesses had
overheard the Clanton saying that they were going to kill
the earps. So the RBS are like, see, this is
all just self defense. Yeah, And there wasn't actual hearing
because of that, um that call for murder old timing
(10:33):
name please, justice of the piece. Well, Spicer had a
hearing and he basically said, uh no, you know what,
it seems to me like they were well within their
rights as marshals and what they called special policemen to
do their duty. And because of Addie Borland's testimony, um,
and you know, I Clanton came out and he had
(10:54):
his own testimony, but it looks like they just you know,
it's frontier justice. They sided on the quote unquote law. Yeah.
I think I Clinton said that he and his brother
and gang members had their hands up and we're still
fired upon and at least one of them might not
have had a weapon, depending on who you asked on
the cowboys side. So that's how it went down. The
(11:17):
gunfight at the Ok Corral in a vacant lot at
three pm, that's right. And later on there was an
attempt assassination attempt on Virgil Earth in December of that
same year. Morgan Earp was murdered and a billiard club
in early eighty two, and everyone is cycle this is
clearly the work of Clanton, although who knows, because it's
(11:40):
frontier justice, it could have been anything. He could have
snored too loud. I'm sure the brothers had more more
enemies than just I Clanton, but people still suspect that
it was him. And as for Clanton, he was killed
and seven in the Arizona Territory by a detective and
Wyatt Earp lived until eighteen to the ripled age of
(12:02):
eighty where he died. Where else Los Angeles, where he
was a DJ and a sometime music producer. That's funny.
That's it for Short Stuff, everybody. If you want to
get in touch with the send us an email, you
have to go listen to the regular episodes to find
out where to send it to. Short Stuff is Out.
(12:24):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
there's Jerry. Let's get to it. Giddy up, draw that's
pretty good, little pea shooter laser. That's right. So we're
talking about the gunfight at the Okay Corral. I've been there?
Have you ever been there? No, you've been there. What's
(00:27):
it like? Dusty? I'll bet I was gonna say dusty hot?
Were there? Tumbleweeds sure everywhere? Varmints, you wouldn't believe the varmints, wraps, gallions,
that's barilla, Yeah, all that good stuff. Have you ever
tasted sasaparilla? Sure, it's kind of like roop here. That's
what I've always thought. But I don't I don't know.
I'm not sure. I think I had one back then,
(00:49):
but I don't remember that that when I was a child.
But we are talking about the gunfight at the Okay Corral,
the very excuse me, famous gunfight between the the Earps
and Doc Holiday and the cowboys. A very simplistic way
to look at this, which was in the um. Otherwise,
pretty good. How stuff works short article is, you know
(01:12):
the Earths were the good guys. The bad guys were
the other guys wrong. But there's some nuance there because
the earps and I think, like most lawman of the
time out west, you know, there were criminals too sometimes
they were. The thing that differentiated them was the badge
and the fact that they were able to enforce the law. Yeah,
(01:33):
and not to say that they were all awful people
and they were horse thieves and you know, no good cusses,
as this article says for the bad guys, but that
was definitely, Um, I think it was kind of few
and far between where you had a truly just and
righteous lawman. Well so why at A he had been
(01:53):
run out of California for horse thieving, so he was
an actual horse thief. He moved to Wichita and he
was a marshal there for three years before he was
run out of which atall for corruption. And then he
ended up in Tombstone where his brother Virgil was the
marshal there. And then Wyatt and his brother Morgan became
basically deputy marshals under their brother and they kind of
(02:15):
selectively enforced the law. But when it came to those cowboys,
the Clanton gang is another way to put it, Um,
they enforced the law extra judiciously, very frequently. Yeah. They
also had a buddy named John Henry Holiday. He's from Griffin,
went by the name of doc was he, Yeah, dent.
His dental office is still in Griffin. I think it's
(02:38):
like your museum now. So he was a he was
good with a gun and not shy with a trigger finger.
And we should mention the bad guys, he said. The
Clanton Gang was a man named Billy Claiborne, and then
I can Billy Clanton and then Frank and Tom McLaury.
And they weren't just like you know, low life cowboys.
(02:59):
They were actually from wealthy ranching families from what I understand. Yeah,
but you know it was sort of a thing back
in the day, which I guess you could still be
a rich low life really, yeah, kidding me. They're they're everywhere. Uh,
These these two groups of men did not like each
other though, um for a full year. Uh in Tombstone,
(03:21):
they really went through a population explosion when someone found
not gold in them dar Hills, but silver good enough,
good enough at the time, and uh, they said, we
need some law enforcement. And it was literally the wild
West out there at the time. I know that that
word has used a lot like it's the Wild West
(03:43):
and podcasting. Yea, with all these shootouts. You know who's
quick on the draw is that Roman mars Man. That
guy's good. But they went to the town leaders, and
they had a lot of the town leaders on their side.
They went to Verge and white ear It's like, you guys,
are you know good enough? I guess yeah, you've done
(04:05):
it before and you're not afraid to shoot someone in
the face, right, So go shoot him in the face. Boys. So, um,
you've got like this this uh history of of run
ins between the herbs and the cowboys. There was bad
blood between them. Um. I read elsewhere that Wyatt Earp
had designs on becoming sheriff of a neighboring town or
(04:29):
neighboring county, and so he wanted to make his name
by bringing the Clanton gang down. So he actually went
to Ike Clanton and said, hey, why don't you turn
on your brother and the rest of the gang members
and I'll make sure that you get off, you know,
Scott free. And apparently apparently Ike was thinking about it.
That was a great cattle wrestler, I think, but Ike
(04:51):
was thinking about it, But he ended up not doing it.
So why it realized that he was in a bit
of a pickle here because it would harm his reputation
if it was found out that he was making chunder
the table deals with bandits Um. And so he decided
that I needed to go the evidence against him. I
needed to be rubbed out. So that's basically from what
(05:15):
I saw that actually led to this gunfight at the
Okay Corral. That the earth Boys were spoiling for a fight.
They were actually stalking the Clanton gang that day. All right, well,
let's take a break and we'll come back and talk
about what happened. Not high noon, but about three o'clock.
I guess it was high noon somewhere on October. All right,
(06:07):
so here's the deal. In Tombstone. It was against the
law to carry weapons in Tombstone, which is shocking. Yeah,
don't they know about the Second Amendment? I don't know.
So Virgil Earp and Virgil was the he was the
marshal at the time. He said, cowboys, you know, you're
(06:29):
not supposed to have your guns. And there was some
other run ins that day. There were a couple of
violent pistol whippings. H and Tom I Clanton and Tom
McClary were kind of beat down by the RBS earlier
in the day. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't see anything
about that elsewhere. But well, it basically came to a
head at about three o'clock on October. And this is
(06:51):
crazy to think about, but the gunfight at the Okay
Corral lasted about thirty seconds. There were about thirty to
forty shots fired between. Mean, how many guys? Was it six? No?
I think it was more like eight or nine. But
estimates say that they were about six ft apart from
one another. Can you imagine they were just in a
(07:12):
little circle. Basically, he'd just be like shooting at each other.
Stop quick stop. I'm surprised they all didn't end up
dead A couple of them did. Um, I know that
both of I think both of the Clanton brothers ended
up dead, right, Billy Clanton died and then both mcclari brothers.
So three of the cowboys died. Um, none of the
herbs died. But Whyatt got off scott free? He had
(07:35):
no scratches on him. Virgil almost died. He got shot
through the back and just narrowly missed his spine. Right now,
that was Morgan. Virgil got hit in the leg. But yeah, Morgan,
it just was like a through shot. But I mean,
I know, I'm sure that felt great. Dot got a
little scrape and I think he said, like, why you
know this is Kevin Costner. But yeah, that's some pretty
(07:58):
terrible shooting right there from six right. So um, yeah,
that's that's basically like closing your eyes and just firing
like in a direction that level of of contact. Yeah,
you would have seen my boot spurs running in the
other direction in a zig zaggie pattern. So um. The
(08:19):
shootout of the Okay Corral lasted thirty seconds. It was
not at high noon, and another little known fact is
that it wasn't even at the Okay Corral. It was
in a vacant lot behind the corral, between a boarding
house and a photo studio. Oh really, yeah, I don't
think I knew that it's true. It was in an
Olen mills. Afterwards, Doc Holiday went and got a picture
(08:40):
where it's like face on and then up in the
corner he like looking off into the into the moon.
So here's how it apparently went down. It's like I said,
those brothers are mclarie and Clinton had been pistol whipped
earlier in the day. Um, the cowboys came into town
pretty ticked off about this and kind of looking for
a fight. So posedly, but also supposedly the RBS were
(09:04):
just like waiting to start a fight with these guys. Yeah.
Actually the um earps were almost charged with murder for
a second there, I think Ike, you said Ike survived, right? Uh? Yes,
Ike Clanton a couple of days later formally accused the
Herbs of murder, basically saying that they had ambushed the cowboys.
That's right. There were a lot of eye witnesses, but
(09:25):
there was one kind of apparently really important eye witness
uh named Addie Borland, and she said, uh, quote, I
didn't see anyone holding up their hands. They all seemed
to be firing in general, on both sides. They were
firing on both sides at each other. Right. So, what
the historians think actually happened is that the RBS came
(09:46):
upon the Clantons, who were caught by surprise, and the
Herbs said drop your weapons or we'll start firing, right.
They actually said it out loud, but then started firing
before they even had a chance to drop their weapons.
The Clanton gang star, it's firing back. But again they
were ambushed, they were caught by surprise, and they weren't
given a chance to actually surrender. Um. And so there
(10:09):
were kind of some things in there in the favor
of a case of murder against the herbs. But the
thing that got them off is that earlier witnesses had
overheard the Clanton saying that they were going to kill
the earps. So the RBS are like, see, this is
all just self defense. Yeah, And there wasn't actual hearing
because of that, um that call for murder old timing
(10:33):
name please, justice of the piece. Well, Spicer had a
hearing and he basically said, uh no, you know what,
it seems to me like they were well within their
rights as marshals and what they called special policemen to
do their duty. And because of Addie Borland's testimony, um,
and you know, I Clanton came out and he had
(10:54):
his own testimony, but it looks like they just you know,
it's frontier justice. They sided on the quote unquote law. Yeah.
I think I Clinton said that he and his brother
and gang members had their hands up and we're still
fired upon and at least one of them might not
have had a weapon, depending on who you asked on
the cowboys side. So that's how it went down. The
(11:17):
gunfight at the Ok Corral in a vacant lot at
three pm, that's right. And later on there was an
attempt assassination attempt on Virgil Earth in December of that
same year. Morgan Earp was murdered and a billiard club
in early eighty two, and everyone is cycle this is
clearly the work of Clanton, although who knows, because it's
(11:40):
frontier justice, it could have been anything. He could have
snored too loud. I'm sure the brothers had more more
enemies than just I Clanton, but people still suspect that
it was him. And as for Clanton, he was killed
and seven in the Arizona Territory by a detective and
Wyatt Earp lived until eighteen to the ripled age of
(12:02):
eighty where he died. Where else Los Angeles, where he
was a DJ and a sometime music producer. That's funny.
That's it for Short Stuff, everybody. If you want to
get in touch with the send us an email, you
have to go listen to the regular episodes to find
out where to send it to. Short Stuff is Out.
(12:24):
Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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