The Earps' Flight After the Fight

The lawmen’s route from Arizona to New Mexico and Colorado is a grand adventure.

- By Johnny D. Boggs

The Gunfight That Wasn’t at the O.K. Corral was over, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were planted in Tombstone, Arizona’s cemetery, and there would be no murder trial facing lawmen Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt Earp or consumptive dentist-gambler John “Doc” Holliday for the most famous half-minute gunfight in Western history.

But payback was hell.

On December 28, 1881—just two months after the gunfight—Virgil Earp was badly wounded on the streets of Tombstone. On March 18, 1882, Morgan Earp was shot to death while playing pool with Wyatt at an Allen Street saloon/billiard parlor.

Wyatt decided it was time to get the hell out of Dodge, er, Tombstone.

The “Flight” of the Earps began, but it was not your run-of-the-mill skedaddle. For a few days, in fact, it became a vendetta.

Arizona

First, Wyatt, Doc and pals knew they needed to get Morgan’s coffin and Virgil and family out of Arizona. That led them to Contention City (now little more than dust and memories), where the funeral cortege boarded a train to Benson (Benson Historical Museum) and from there to Tucson (Southern Arizona Transportation Museum). At the depot, the Earp party met up with Earp/Holliday-hating “Cowboys” Frank Stilwell and Ike Clanton. The latter had the good sense to run. Stilwell fell dead from a lot of lead.