Tombstone, Arizona Tombstone to Benson, Arizona, the nearest railroad freight terminal. Near Drew's Station, just outside Contention City, the popular and well-known driver Eli "Budd" Philpot and a passenger named Peter Roerig riding in the rear dickey seat were both shot and killed. Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp and his temporary deputies and brothers Wyatt Earp and Morgan Earp pursued the Cowboys suspected of the murders. This set off a chain of events that culminated on October 26, 1881, in a gunfight in a vacant lot owned by famous photographer C. S. Fly near, not in or at the O. K. Corral,
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral although it could have been anyone among the lawmen. Wyatt had developed a reputation as a no-nonsense, hard-nosed lawman, but prior to the gunfight in October 1881, he had been involved in only one other shooting, in Dodge City, Kansas during the summer of 1878. The 1931 book "" was a best-selling biography by Stuart N. Lake. It established Wyatt Earp's role as a fearless lawman in the American Old West and the legend of the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" in the public consciousness. But Lake and many others in the popular media wildly exaggerated Wyatt's role as the