O.K. Corral

The O.K. Corral was a livery stable on Allen Street during Tombstone's silver boom. Its name became famous because of what happened nearby on October 26, 1881, when City Marshal Virgil Earp, his brothers Wyatt and Morgan, and Doc Holliday confronted Ike and Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury. Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were killed, and Virgil and Morgan Earp were wounded.

The gunfight did not take place inside the corral. It happened in a narrow vacant lot behind it, off Fremont Street, between the Harwood house and C. S. Fly's photography gallery and boarding house, and nearly thirty shots were fired in about thirty seconds.

Today the O.K. Corral is a private attraction, run by the Tombstone Historama Corporation, and its grounds extend from Allen Street back to Fremont Street, taking in the lot where the shooting started. Inside, life-size figures of the eight men stand where a map drawn by Wyatt Earp placed them. There are 1880s-style stables, a blacksmith shop and buggies, and a gallery of C. S. Fly's photographs, including his pictures of Geronimo and of Tombstone life in the 1880s. Staged reenactments of the gunfight run several times a day in the complex's theater.

Your ticket also covers Tombstone's Historama next door, a multimedia history of the town narrated by the actor Vincent Price, and the Tombstone Epitaph Museum on Fifth Street, where the newspaper's 1880s Washington hand press is displayed. The Epitaph museum is free to enter on its own, and the ticket includes a reprint of the 1881 Epitaph with its reports of the gunfight.

This is a commercial attraction rather than a historic site run by a public agency, and it mixes history with entertainment. For the documentary record, pair it with the state-run courthouse museum on Toughnut Street.