October 26, 1881 — 30 Seconds, Three Dead, and Visitors Still Photograph the Aftermath
308 E. Allen St, Tombstone, AZ 85638
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
$10 with reenactment, $6 without. Children 5 and under free. Includes Historama theater and 1881 Tombstone Epitaph reprint.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved courtyard and covered exhibit area; generally flat with minimal barriers
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1881 · Gunfight at the O.K. Corral · Earp-Clanton Feud · Arizona Territorial Law Enforcement History
The gunfight that made Tombstone internationally famous lasted approximately 30 seconds. On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday confronted Ike and Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury in a vacant lot near the rear entrance to the O.K. Corral on Fremont Street.
Virgil Earp, serving as Tombstone's town marshal, had been attempting to disarm the Clanton-McLaury faction for much of that day. The confrontation turned violent almost immediately. When the shooting stopped, Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, and Frank McLaury were dead. Virgil Earp took a bullet in the calf, Morgan Earp was shot through both shoulders, and Doc Holliday received a graze wound to the hip. Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne fled during the fight.
The inquest that followed divided Tombstone. Judge Wells Spicer cleared the Earps and Holliday of murder charges in November 1881, finding that Virgil had acted within his authority as marshal. The factional dispute continued: Morgan Earp was murdered in March 1882, and Virgil Earp was ambushed and permanently disabled in December 1881.
The site was preserved and opened to tourists in the twentieth century. Today the O.K. Corral Historic Complex includes the courtyard where the gunfight occurred — marked by life-size figures representing the combatants at the moment of the first shot — along with a multimedia Historama theater and period exhibits. Reenactments run three times daily.
Sources
The gunfight location on Fremont Street generates more visitor paranormal photographs than almost any documented site in Arizona, according to ghost tour operators who have worked Tombstone for decades. The most common captures are described as transparent human-shaped outlines and irregular bright forms near the positions where the three men were killed.
The site manager has reported seeing a tall figure in a wide-brimmed hat standing in the courtyard doorway after closing — solid enough to cause concern before it resolved into shadow. Cold spots cluster near the positions of the mannequin figures representing the Clanton-McLaury side, corresponding to where Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers fell.
The proximity of Boot Hill Graveyard — where all three slain men were buried — and the ongoing reenactment of their deaths six times daily makes the site unusual among dark tourism locations: the deaths are performed and re-witnessed constantly, which some paranormal researchers argue maintains a kind of ambient psychic charge regardless of one's view of the underlying claims. Whether that framing holds up, the visitor photograph volume is verifiably anomalous compared to adjacent Tombstone sites.
Notable Entities
Ticketed access to the gunfight site with life-size mannequin diorama, Historama multimedia theater, and exhibits on the Earp and Clanton families. Reenactments performed at 11 AM, 1 PM, and 3 PM.
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