# UX187 - 1994 19c Wyatt Earp Postal Card
Shootout At The OK Corral
Tombstone had become one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest after silver was discovered nearby in 1877. Two years later, Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer, and his brothers Morgan and Virgil moved to Tombstone to join in the silver boom and work as lawmen. Wyatt found a job as a bank security guard while Virgil became the town marshal.
When the smoke cleared, three of the cowboys lay dead or dying, and the fourth was seriously wounded. Of the lawmen only Wyatt Earp emerged unscathed. Ike Clanton and Claiborne ran away. A local cowboy newspaper proclaimed, “The 26th of October, 1881, will always be marked as one of the crimson days in the annals of Tombstone, a day when blood flowed as water, and human life was held as a shuttle cock, a day to be remembered as witnessing the bloodiest and deadliest street fight that has ever occurred in this place, or probably in the Territory.”
The shootout became part of legend of the American West and had been recreated in a number of films.
Click here to see a film adaptation of the gunfight from Wyatt Earp.
Shootout At The OK Corral
Tombstone had become one of the richest mining towns in the Southwest after silver was discovered nearby in 1877. Two years later, Wyatt Earp, a former Kansas police officer, and his brothers Morgan and Virgil moved to Tombstone to join in the silver boom and work as lawmen. Wyatt found a job as a bank security guard while Virgil became the town marshal.
When the smoke cleared, three of the cowboys lay dead or dying, and the fourth was seriously wounded. Of the lawmen only Wyatt Earp emerged unscathed. Ike Clanton and Claiborne ran away. A local cowboy newspaper proclaimed, “The 26th of October, 1881, will always be marked as one of the crimson days in the annals of Tombstone, a day when blood flowed as water, and human life was held as a shuttle cock, a day to be remembered as witnessing the bloodiest and deadliest street fight that has ever occurred in this place, or probably in the Territory.”
The shootout became part of legend of the American West and had been recreated in a number of films.
Click here to see a film adaptation of the gunfight from Wyatt Earp.