Gunfight at the O.K. Corral to town, and shootings were frequent. In the 1880s, illegal smuggling and theft of cattle, alcohol, and tobacco across the Mexico–United States border, about from Tombstone, were common. The Mexican government assessed heavy export taxes on these items, and smugglers earned a handsome profit by stealing them in Mexico and selling them across the border. James, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp arrived in Tombstone on December 1, 1879, when the small town was mostly composed of tents as living quarters, a few saloons and other buildings, and the mines. Virgil had been hired as Deputy U.S. Marshal for eastern Pima County,
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral although it could have been anyone among the lawmen. Wyatt had developed a reputation as a no-nonsense, hard-nosed lawman, but prior to the gunfight in October 1881, he had been involved in only one other shooting, in Dodge City, Kansas during the summer of 1878. The 1931 book "" was a best-selling biography by Stuart N. Lake. It established Wyatt Earp's role as a fearless lawman in the American Old West and the legend of the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" in the public consciousness. But Lake and many others in the popular media wildly exaggerated Wyatt's role as the