Gunfight at the O.K. Corral the law in their favor when it affected their gambling and saloon interests, which earned them further enmity with the Cowboy faction. To reduce crime in Tombstone, on April 19, 1881, the city council passed ordinance 9, requiring anyone carrying a bowie knife, dirk, pistol or rifle to deposit their weapons at a livery or saloon soon after entering town. The ordinance was the legal basis for City Marshal Virgil Earp's decision to confront the Cowboys on the day of the shootout. In the borderlands south of Tombstone there was only one passable route between Arizona and Mexico, a passage
O.K. Corral (building) corral and buildings were completely destroyed by a fire that burned almost all of the western business district on May 25, 1882. The rebuilt corral began to gain attention from the American public in 1931, when author Stuart Lake published an initially well-received biography, "", two years after Earp's death. Published during the Great Depression, the book captured American imaginations. It was also the basis for the 1946 film, "My Darling Clementine," by director John Ford. After the film "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" was released in 1957, the shootout became known by that name and the corral became wrongly