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 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