Gunfight at the O.K. Corral during the American Civil War and in 1877 became a police officer in Prescott, Arizona. He followed that with a job as a night watchman before he became a constable. Wyatt had held two jobs as a police officer in the cattle-drive towns of Wichita and Dodge City, Kansas. James, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp, together with their wives, arrived in Tombstone on December 1, 1879, during the early period of rapid growth associated with mining, when there were only a few hundred residents. Virgil was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal shortly before he arrived in Tombstone. In the summer of 1880,
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral a room, Tom McLaury and Ike Clanton had no place to go. Shortly after 8:00 am barkeeper E. F. Boyle spoke to Ike Clanton in front of the telegraph office. Clanton had been drinking all night and Boyle encouraged him to get some sleep, but Ike insisted he would not go to bed. Boyle later testified he noticed Ike was armed and covered his gun for him. Boyle later said that Ike told him, "'As soon as the Earps and Doc Holliday showed themselves on the street, the ball would open—that they would have to fight' ... I went down