About Us:

On October 26, 1881, long-simmering friction between the Earps and the Clanton-McLaury gang erupted in the vacant lot behind the O.K. Corral. In a fateful thirty seconds, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral left three men dead and three wounded.

Today, we paint this iconic event in images of black and white – lawmen and cattle rustlers, heroes and villains, a legendary example of Western vigilante justice – our vision framed by movies like Tombstone and My Darling Clementine. The West embodies an almost mythical place of independence, self-reliance, and hard-won achievement, a land of dramatic spaces where pistol-packing, high-spirited adventurers moved our nation towards greatness.

For over 135 years, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral has captured the imagination of filmmakers, historians, and novelists – masking the complex backdrop behind the deadly tensions that exploded on October 26, 1881. After the Civil War, America’s industrial growth spurred rapid Westward expansion. Boomtowns like Tombstone provided fertile ground for continuing the war’s sectional strife. Northern businessmen and Texas cowboys brought their economic, political, and social conflicts with them into the Arizona Territory.

Three years after claims were first staked in this isolated corner of southeastern Arizona deep in Apache territory, silver production reached nearly $11 million. Republican entrepreneurs jockeyed with Democratic ranchers for control of Tombstone’s enormous wealth and power.