Interesting....we just spent two days in Tombstone...those Earp brothers were NOT the good guys often portrayed in movies....and...the OK Corral shootout really was a MINOR incident....70 people died on the main street in Tombstone in a two year period during the time they were there...
There was a good article in “The American Rifleman” a few years back. It was written by a member of the 6th Cavalry who was stationed outside Tombstone during the time of the gunfight.
He lived to be over a hundred. His opinion of Wyatt Earp was the same as yours. He said he was a pimp and only used the badge for his own purposes.
He didn’t think much of Doc Holliday either. He called him an insane killer.
Wyatt Earp shoed up at the Eagle Creek gold rush in Northern Idaho in 1881 and opened a saloon in a tent.
I guess he figgered that was far enough away from Tombstone that none of the Clanton clan or their friends would fnd him there. But maybe not. A few years later that gold rush had played out and it was off to Alaska for the Earps.
Kitschy, but fun and worth the jaunt.
Actually, my reading indicates that there were many shades of gray between the Earp and Clanton factions. neither was all good or all bad. Probably the most accurate depiction was the animosity and the gun fight was between the Democrat southern sympathizers (the Clantons) and the Republican northern sympathizers. (the Earps)
By the way, Ike Clanton was killed by a ˜detective” near Springerville, AZ about 10 years after the gunfight.
Warp may not have been all that good...but my impression of the whole thing is that it was a battle between law and order (republican earps) vs. lawless democrats (clantons). Law and order (repubs) won.
The last time I was there the OK Corral was behind a bar. You go out a door and it was about a 30x30 square foot boxed/fenced in area. Less than impressive.