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
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral Harwood house. In testimony given by witnesses afterward, they disagreed about the precise location of the men before, during and after the gunfight. The coroner's inquest and the Spicer hearing produced a sketch showing the Cowboys standing, from left to right facing Fremont Street, with Billy Clanton and then Frank McLaury near the Harwood house and Tom McLaury and Ike Clanton roughly in the middle of the lot. Opposite them and initially only about away, Virgil Earp was on the left end of the Earp party, standing a few feet inside the vacant lot and nearest Ike Clanton. Behind him