Gunfight at the O.K. Corral central figure in the gunfight. It was only discovered much later that "Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal", based on eight interviews with Earp, was largely fictional. The book and later Hollywood portrayals embellished Wyatt's reputation and magnified his mystique as a western lawman. Morgan Earp had no known experience with gunfighting prior to their arrival in Tombstone. While Wyatt was Pima County Deputy Sheriff on July 27, 1881, Morgan Earp took over his job as shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo. Morgan also occasionally assisted Virgil and at the time of the gunfight was wearing a deputy city marshal's badge and drawing
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral open range for outlaws, largely unopposed by law enforcement officers who were spread thin over vast territories. The gunfight was not well known to the American public until 1931, when Stuart Lake published the initially well-received biography "" two years after Earp's death. The book was the basis for the 1946 film "My Darling Clementine", directed by John Ford, and the 1957 film "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral", after which the shootout became known by that name. Since then, the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books, and has become an archetype