On October 26, 1881, the dusty frontier town of Tombstone, Arizona, became the stage for one of the most legendary gunfights in American history. Known as the “Shootout at the O.K. Corral,” the brief but violent encounter between the Earp brothers, their ally Doc Holliday, and a group of outlaw cowboys has come to symbolize both the lawlessness and the myth of the Wild West.
Tombstone had grown quickly in the late 1870s after the discovery of silver. Prospectors, merchants, gamblers, and gunslingers crowded into the boomtown, and with them came conflict. Law enforcement was fragile at best. Marshal Virgil Earp, along with his brothers Wyatt and Morgan, tried to impose order. They clashed repeatedly with a loose band of ranchers and rustlers known as the “cowboys,” led by Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury. Tensions simmered for months, fueled by accusations of cattle theft, stagecoach robberies, and political rivalries.
The final confrontation erupted after Ike Clanton threatened the Earps in public and gathered allies, including Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton. Armed and defiant, the cowboys lingered in town despite warnings to disarm. That afternoon, Virgil Earp, carrying a shotgun, led his brothers Wyatt and Morgan, along with dentist-turned-gunslinger Doc Holliday, down Fremont Street toward the vacant lot near the O.K. Corral. Within seconds of their arrival, bullets began to fly.
The gunfight lasted less than half a minute, but it was deadly. When the smoke cleared, Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp were wounded, and Doc Holliday suffered a minor injury. Wyatt Earp, remarkably, was unharmed. The surviving cowboys fled, while Tombstone’s residents reeled from the sudden burst of violence in the heart of town.
What followed was nearly as dramatic as the shootout itself. Supporters of the cowboys accused the Earps and Holliday of murder, while others praised them for enforcing the law against dangerous outlaws. A series of court hearings ensued. Judge Wells Spicer eventually ruled that the Earps and Holliday had acted within their duty as law officers, though suspicion and resentment lingered. Retaliation came months later when Morgan Earp was assassinated, and Virgil was crippled by an ambush. Wyatt embarked on a personal vendetta, hunting down those he blamed, further blurring the line between justice and revenge.
Over time, the O.K. Corral gunfight became larger than life. Newspapers sensationalized the story, dime novelists embellished it, and Hollywood later turned it into a defining scene of the Western genre. In reality, it was not a grand showdown between good and evil but a messy, tragic clash rooted in the instability of a boomtown struggling with crime and law enforcement. Yet the event endures as a symbol of frontier justice and the violent struggles that shaped the American West.
1. On what date did the O.K. Corral shootout occur?
2. Who opposed the Earps and Doc Holliday in Tombstone?
3. What most directly sparked the final confrontation near the O.K. Corral?
4. Which statement best describes the outcome of the gunfight?
5. How did Judge Wells Spicer rule after the hearings?
6. Which sentence best states a central idea of the passage?
7. In the passage, the word “vendetta” most nearly means: