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,
O.K. Corral (building) corral and buildings were completely destroyed by a fire that burned almost all of the western business district on May 25, 1882. The rebuilt corral began to gain attention from the American public in 1931, when author Stuart Lake published an initially well-received biography, "", two years after Earp's death. Published during the Great Depression, the book captured American imaginations. It was also the basis for the 1946 film, "My Darling Clementine," by director John Ford. After the film "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" was released in 1957, the shootout became known by that name and the corral became wrongly