Gunfight at the O.K. Corral After Wyatt Earp first arrived in Tombstone, his business efforts yielded little profit, and he took a job as a stagecoach shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo, guarding shipments of silver bullion. On July 28, 1880 Wyatt was appointed Pima County Deputy Sheriff. He held this position for only three months until after the election of November 9, 1880, when he resigned. When Virgil was maimed by an assassination attempt, Wyatt was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal in his place. He held that position until he left Cochise County in April 1882. Wyatt Earp was an imposing, handsome man: blond, tall, weighing
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral the shooters' view of each other. The episode concluded that the three eyewitnesses for the prosecution (Sheriff Behan, Ike Clanton, and Billy Claiborne) likely offered perjured testimony. They found that Tom McLaury may have been hit by the shotgun round under his armpit as he reached over his horse for a rifle in his scabbard, as the horse turned away from him at the same time. The stories about the gunfight written in the 20th century affected American culture. Numerous dramatic, fictional, and documentary works have been produced about or in reference to the event, with widely varying degrees of