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 day. Though usually opposing each other in their reporting of events, reporting by both the "Epitaph" and the "Nugget" initially supported the lawmen's version of events. Woods, the publisher of the pro-Cowboy "Nugget", was out of town during the hearings, and an experienced reporter, Richard Rule, wrote the story. The "Nugget" staff had a close relationship with Sheriff Behan, but Rule's story, as printed in the "Nugget" the day after the shootout, backed up the Earps' version of events. This varied widely from Behan's and the Cowboys' later court testimony. Subsequent stories about the gunfight published in the "Nugget" after