Gunfight at the O.K. Corral been appointed Tombstone's town marshal (i.e., chief of police) on June 6, 1881, after Ben Sippy abandoned the job. However, Virgil at the same time continued to hold his position of deputy U.S. marshal, and it was in this federal capacity that he continued to chase robbers of stage coaches outside Tombstone city limits. At the scene of the holdup, Wyatt discovered an unusual boot print left by someone wearing a custom-repaired boot heel. The Earps checked a shoe repair shop in Bisbee known to provide widened boot heels and were able to link the boot print to Stilwell. Frank
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