The Earp brothers - Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan - had been feuding with the Clanton and McLaury families for months. The tensions involved cattle rustling, law enforcement jurisdiction, and personal animosity. On October 26, 1881, Town Marshal Virgil Earp led his brothers and Doc Holliday to confront the cowboys near the O.K. Corral. Someone (disputed who) drew first. In 30 seconds, approximately 30 shots were fired. Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury died; Virgil and Morgan Earp were wounded. Wyatt and Holliday escaped injury. The shootout wasn't heroic law enforcement against outlaws - it was a messy personal feud that ended in killing. The legend simplified the story; the reality was complicated.

Wyatt Earp arrived in Tombstone in 1879, following the silver boom. He worked as a shotgun messenger, dealt faro, and acquired mining interests. His brothers came too; their complicated legal and extralegal activities entangled them with local ranchers and cowboys. After the O.K. Corral, Wyatt faced murder charges (later dropped). When Morgan was assassinated in 1882, Wyatt launched a vendetta ride, killing men he believed responsible before fleeing Arizona Territory ahead of his own murder warrants. Earp spent decades in obscurity before becoming a legend in his final years, consulting on films and cultivating a heroic narrative. He died in Los Angeles in 1929, famous for 30 seconds of violence 48 years earlier.

Ed Schieffelin discovered silver near the San Pedro River in 1877; the rush that followed created Tombstone almost overnight. By 1881, the town had 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, and a population approaching 15,000 - the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco, some claimed. The silver production was enormous; the mines were among the richest in the West. Then the shafts hit groundwater in the mid-1880s. Pumping couldn't keep up; the mines flooded and closed. Tombstone's population collapsed; the town nearly died. But Tombstone refused to disappear, becoming a tourist destination by the early 1900s, its violent past more valuable than its silver deposits.

Tombstone reenacts the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral multiple times daily. Actors in period costume stage shootouts on Allen Street; the Historama presents wax figures and narration. Boot Hill Cemetery contains the graves of those killed in the gunfight and other frontier violence (some markers read simply 'HANGED' or 'KILLED BY INDIANS'). The Bird Cage Theatre, a former saloon and brothel, offers tours of the building where 26 people were killed. The Big Nose Kate Saloon still serves drinks. Everything in Tombstone is for sale - the Old West experience, manufactured for tourists who want to believe in a simpler time of good guys and bad guys that never quite existed.

Tucson International Airport (TUS) is 70 miles northwest, the closest commercial airport. Tombstone is a day trip from Tucson or a stop on Route 80 through southeastern Arizona. The town covers a few blocks; everything is walkable. The O.K. Corral site charges admission for its reenactments and museum. The surrounding Dragoon Mountains and Coronado National Forest offer hiking and history - this was Apache territory, where Cochise and Geronimo fought the U.S. Army. From altitude, Tombstone appears as a tiny cluster of buildings in the desert grasslands - the San Pedro Valley visible, the Dragoon Mountains rising to the east - the town that turned 30 seconds of violence into an eternal industry.