The Gunfight Itself

The most famous shootout in American history was over in about 30 seconds. Roughly thirty shots flew at point-blank range, close enough that some men could have reached out and touched their targets.

When the smoke cleared, three men were dead and three were wounded. Virgil and Morgan Earp were both hit, and Doc Holliday took a bullet that grazed his hip. Of the men who drew that day, only Wyatt Earp walked away untouched, the two unarmed cowboys having already fled. And it did not happen at the O.K. Corral. The shooting took place in a narrow vacant lot down the street, behind a photography studio. The corral's name stuck only because it sounded better in the headlines.