<P> The gunfight was not well - known to the American public until 1931, when Stuart Lake published the initially well - received biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal two years after Earp's death . The book was the basis for the 1946 film My Darling Clementine, directed by John Ford, and the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, after which the shootout became known by that name . Since then, the conflict has been portrayed with varying degrees of accuracy in numerous Western films and books, and has become an archetype for much of the popular imagery associated with the Old West . </P> <P> Despite its name, the gunfight did not take place within or next to the O.K. Corral, which fronted Allen Street and had a rear entrance lined with horse stalls on Fremont Street . The shootout actually took place in a narrow lot on the side of C.S. Fly's Photographic Studio on Fremont Street, six doors west of the O.K. Corral's rear entrance . Some members of the two opposing parties were initially only about 6 feet (1.8 m) apart . About 30 shots were fired in 30 seconds . Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were killed . Ike Clanton filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday . The lawmen were eventually exonerated by a local justice of the peace after a 30 - day preliminary hearing and then by a local grand jury . </P> <P> The gunfight was not the end of the conflict . On December 28, 1881, Virgil Earp was ambushed and maimed in a murder attempt by the Cowboys . On March 18, 1882, Cowboys fired from a dark alley through the glass door of a saloon, killing Morgan Earp . The suspects in both incidents furnished alibis supplied by other Cowboys and were not indicted . Wyatt Earp, newly appointed as Deputy U.S. Marshal in Cochise County, then took matters into his own hands in a personal vendetta . He was pursued by county sheriff Johnny Behan, who had received a warrant from Tucson for Wyatt's shooting of Frank Stilwell . </P> <P> Tombstone, near the Mexican border, was founded in March 1879 . After silver was discovered in the area, Tombstone grew rapidly into a frontier mining boomtown . At its founding, it had a population of just 100, and only two years later, in late 1881, the population was more than 7,000 (excluding Chinese, Mexicans, women, and children), making it the largest boomtown in the Southwest . Silver mining and its attendant wealth attracted many professionals and merchants, who brought their wives and families . With them came churches and ministers . They brought a Victorian sensibility and became the town's elite . By 1881 there were fancy restaurants, a bowling alley, four churches, an ice house, a school, an opera house, two banks, three newspapers, and an ice cream parlor, along with 110 saloons, 14 gambling halls, and numerous brothels, all situated among a number of dirty, hardscrabble mines . </P>

According to the daily exchange which covered the shootout at tombstone