Thus was the romance of Tombstone. Within six months ten thousand men had placed a city upon that desert mountainside. Silence of the unpeopled hills had been routed by the hum of industry. Curling smoke betrayed peaceful, happy firesides. Life was normal and we looked toward the future with optimism.

---John Clum Mayor of Tombstone editor of the Epitaph page 78 of Apache Days & Tombstone Nights Neil Carmony, ed..

John Clum, Wyatt & Sadie/Josie Earp, George Parsons, Nellie Cashman--all lived in Tombstone in 1881, all lived long lives, and all spent many years in mining camps in many places. This short quotation expresses an important force in all those lives, and in the lives of many less heralded folks who mined, or lived near mines. To all appearances, everyone on this list would have lived pretty much the same life with or without the savage gunfight which appears to define the Tombstone story. (Of course, other folks' lives were profoundly affected by the shootout. This necessary acknowledgement does not change my point.)

Clum, forever a booster, exaggerates the growth of Tombstone a bit. The town may have reached ten thousand, but it was several years, not a few months.

That Sadie/Josie thing is a bother. Josephine Marcus Earp is hardly the only person known to history by a different name than they used in life--Adrian Anson comes immediately to mind--but it's annoying. And I repeat, for emphasis: Tombstone's history is a contentious trap, and has been so from the start. Long-standing disputes make it difficult to find a foothold.

Let's look at some maps....

Where, Exactly, is Tombstone?

• In Cochise County; southern Arizona, only a few miles from Mexico. Google Maps.
• The nearest big towns are Sierra Vista (Fort Huachuca's town) & Tucson. Bisbee is nearby, and Nogales isn't far. Google Maps, again.
• Here's an 1883 map of Cochise County (courtesy of Fort Huachuca's museum--excerpt from a larger map). It's worth keeping in mind railroads hadn't reached Tucson, much less Tombstone, in 1879; Tombstone wouldn't have a rail connection until 1903.

Are there maps of Tombstone?

• Yep.
• Here's a map from 1886, courtesy of the Library of Congress. It concentrates pretty closely on the gunfight location.
• Fern Canyon Press, publisher of a book called Wyatt Earp Speaks, offers this delightful map. Wish I knew more about its provenance, but it certainly looks impressive. It seems likely to have been partially based on a fire insurance map, though not necessarily the 1886 version linked to above. Notice the existence of defined neighborhoods for the Mexicans (of course) and for the Chinese (former railroad workers).
• Tombstone's map still looks about the same today, except the modern map's oriented differently. Google Maps, yet again.
• And here's the current view from overhead. Microsoft's Terraserver.

Once again: I style m'self "dabbler" for good reason. This exercise is mainly for my own entertainment. I'm an amateur in this field, though I'm an experienced researcher who's gained some familiarity with nineteenth century mining towns. I know I'm repeating information available elsewhere, albeit arranged to reflect my personal research style. My immediate object is just to survey the resources, as I've said before, I want to better understand the context and evolution of the story the movies tell about the events in Tombstone. I don't expect to contribute anything serious to the main discussion--about the Earps, that is, and about frontier law.

I'll perhaps have something to say about related issues. We'll see what develops.

This page is more a skeleton of the "facts" the OK Corral movies are built around than anything else--I wanted to compile a chronology without the baggage the story always carries. I am not an expert on this story, and don't aspire to become one; what mainly interests me is its longevity, and the interpretations it's always carried.

A few apparently-reliable links are listed at the bottom.

Gunfight & aftermath:

• OK Gunfight, 10/26/1881.
• Clanton/McLaury funeral, 10/28/1881.
• Earps & Holliday arrested, 10/29/1881.
• Earp pretrial, 11/9 thru 11/12/1881.
• Earps & Holliday acquitted, 11/29/1881.
• Virgil shot, 12/28/1881.
• Morgan shot & killed, 3/18/1882.
• Frank Stillwell killed in Tucson, 3/21/1882.
• Wyatt's Vendetta.

Earp family moves; & Wyatt's law enforcement career:

• Family move to Monmouth, Illinois, 1845.
• Family move to Pella, Iowa, 1850.
• Family move to California, 1864.
• Family move to Lamar, Missouri, ~1870.
• Wyatt in LaMar, 1870. Constable. Married Urilla Sutherland. (Rilla died within months.)
• Wyatt jailed in Arkansas, 1871. Horse thief.
• Family returns to California.
• Wyatt in Wichita, Kansas, April 1875. Police Officer. Somewhere around here he took up with Mattie Blaylock.
• Wyatt in Dodge City, Kansas, 1876. Deputy city marshall.
• Virgil in Prescott, Arizona, 1877. Law enforcement.
• Wyatt in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, 1877.
• Wyatt in Texas, 1877.
• Wyatt in Dodge City, Kansas, 1877. Assistant marshall.
• Brothers in Tombstone, 1879/80-1882. Virgil federal marshall. Wyatt deputy sheriff, then deputy marshall. Josie/Sadie.

Earp Family:

• James, born 6/28/1841, "Ohio County".
• Virgil, born 7/18/1843, Kentucky.
• Wyatt, born 3/19/1848, Illinois.
• Morgan, born 4/24/1851, Iowa.
• Warren, born 3/9/1855, Iowa.

Doc, & Wyatt's wives:

• John (Doc) Holliday, born 1853, Georgia.
• Urilla Sutherland Earp; born 1849.
• Cecelia Ann Blaylock (Mattie Earp); born 1850, Wisconsin.
• Josephine (Sadie or Josie) Marcus Earp, born 1861, NYC.

Cowboys & their Allies:

• John Behan, born 10/23?/1845, Missouri.
• Ike Clanton, born 1847, Missouri.
• Billy Clanton, born 1862, Texas.
• Frank Stillwell, born ????, ????.
• Johnny Ringo, born 5/3/1850, Indiana.
• Curly Bill Brocius (perhaps Graham), born about 1840, perhaps in Texas, perhaps in Indiana.
• Tom McLaury, born 6/30/1853, New York.
• Frank McLaury, born 3/3/1848, New York.

Arizona Territory (Southern, mostly):

• Tucson presidio established, 1775.
• Mexican War, 1846-48
• Gadsden Purchase, 1853.
• Whipple Survey Expedition, 1853-54.
• Butterfield Overland Mail (stage coach), 1858-61.
• Fort Bowie, 1862.
• Arizona Territory established, 1863.
• Fort Whipple, 1864.
• Camp Wallen, 1866-69. (Huachuca's most direct predecessor.)
• Powell Grand Canyon Expedition, 1869.
• Clanton Ranch, 1873.
• Camp Huachuca, 1877 (promoted to Fort 1882).
• First Tombstone claim, 1877.
• First Bisbee claim, 1877.
• Tombstone incorporated, 1879.
• Charleston established, 1879.
• Southern Pacific Railroad to Tucson, 1880.
  • This is a California connection; SP reached Yuma in 1878.
• Cochise County established, 1881.
• U.S. President James Garfield shot (in D.C.) 7/12/1881; died 9/19/1881.
• Douglas established, 1901.
• Arizona statehood, 1912.

Useful References:

• BJ's Tombstone History Discussion Forum is a fascinating place. BJ is Billy Johnson.
• The resource archive pages attached to BJ's discussion group are an essential starting point for any serious researcher.

• Tombstone 1880.
• Wyatt Earp Photo Page.
• Tombstone film errors.
• I am certain there are others.

Beware: Although there are some excellent resources about the Earps on the web (and in print), it is unwise to blindly trust any source for this story until you've read several. Already in 1881 the Tombstone tale was known to be so bizarre that it generated preposterous coverage, and distance from the events hasn't improved the situation. The "primary" sources are biased, contradictory, and sometimes just wrong. So are many of the websites, and much of the printed material. Some sources which seem to be reliable are largely fiction. The movies--even the "historically accurate" movies--distort the story for effect. Although an improbable amount of detail is known about virtually everyone involved in these events, their motivations are pretty mysterious. That's one of the reasons we care about the story.