By October 1881, tensions between the Earp brothers and a loose confederation of ranchers and rustlers known as the Cowboys had reached a breaking point. Virgil Earp served as Tombstone's city marshal. His brothers Wyatt and Morgan backed him up, along with the infamous Doc Holliday, a dentist turned gambler dying slowly of tuberculosis. The Cowboys, including the Clanton and McLaury brothers, were accused of cattle rustling and stagecoach robbery. When citizens reported that the McLaurys and Clantons had gathered on Fremont Street carrying weapons, violating city ordinance, Virgil decided to disarm them. The Earps walked west down Fremont Street, Wyatt carrying a .44 caliber Smith & Wesson in his waistband, Holliday concealing both a nickel-plated pistol and a shotgun beneath his long coat.

Who fired first remains disputed to this day. The smoke from black powder ammunition obscured the narrow lot almost immediately. Witnesses loyal to different sides told conflicting stories. What is certain is the outcome. Tom McLaury took twelve buckshot wounds from a single shotgun blast to his right side. Frank McLaury received a shot beneath his right ear that penetrated his brain, causing instant death, and another wound to his abdomen. Billy Clanton, just nineteen years old, was hit in the wrist as he drew his gun and then shot again. Despite his wounds, Billy kept firing. He and Frank managed to wound both Morgan and Virgil Earp before they died. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne fled the fight unarmed, leaving the three dead Cowboys behind.

The funerals for Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, and Frank McLaury drew 300 people in the procession to Boot Hill and 2,000 spectators on the sidewalks. Public sympathy ran strongly against the Earps. Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer convened a preliminary hearing on October 31 to determine if there was enough evidence for a murder trial. Sheriff Johnny Behan, a friend of the Cowboys, testified for two days, turning public opinion further against the Earps. Prosecutors argued that Tom McLaury was unarmed, that Billy Clanton had his hands in the air. On the strength of their case, Spicer jailed Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp for 16 days. But ultimately, Spicer ruled that even if Tom was unarmed, his presence among armed men resisting arrest could not criminalize the Earps' actions. They walked free.

The Cowboys were not finished. In December 1881, Virgil Earp was ambushed and shot, his left arm permanently crippled. In March 1882, Morgan Earp was murdered while playing billiards. Wyatt's subsequent vendetta ride, hunting down those he believed responsible, only added to the legend. But it was Hollywood that transformed a violent episode in a silver mining town into the defining myth of the American West. Films from 1939's Frontier Marshal to 1993's Tombstone have remade the story countless times. At the peak of television Westerns in 1959, six different shows connected to Wyatt Earp aired weekly. Today, Tombstone stages daily reenactments of a fight that lasted half a minute and happened in a different location than its famous name suggests. The truth has long since surrendered to a better story.