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The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral-And How It Changed the American West
A New York Times bestseller, Jeff Guinn's definitive, myth-busting account of the most famous gunfight in American history reveals who Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons and McLaurys really were and what the shootout was all about.
On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral would shape how future generations came to view the Old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became the stuff of legends, symbolic of a frontier populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones. It's a colorful story--but the truth is even better. Drawing on new material from private collections--including diaries, letters, and Wyatt Earp's own hand-drawn sketch of the shootout's conclusion--as well as archival research, Jeff Guinn gives us a startlingly different and far more fascinating picture of what actually happened that day in Tombstone and why.
On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral would shape how future generations came to view the Old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became the stuff of legends, symbolic of a frontier populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones. It's a colorful story--but the truth is even better. Drawing on new material from private collections--including diaries, letters, and Wyatt Earp's own hand-drawn sketch of the shootout's conclusion--as well as archival research, Jeff Guinn gives us a startlingly different and far more fascinating picture of what actually happened that day in Tombstone and why.
416 pages, Paperback
First published May 17, 2011
408 people are currently reading
4183 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Guinn
30 books730 followersJeff Guinn is a former journalist who has won national, regional and state awards for investigative reporting, feature writing, and literary criticism.
Guinn is also the bestselling author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including, but not limited to: Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde (which was a finalist for an Edgar Award in 2010); The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral - and How It Changed the West; Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson; and The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple.
Jeff Guinn is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He appears as an expert guest in documentaries and on television programs on a variety of topics.
Guinn lives in Fort Worth, Texas.
Guinn is also the bestselling author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction including, but not limited to: Go Down Together: The True Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde (which was a finalist for an Edgar Award in 2010); The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral - and How It Changed the West; Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson; and The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple.
Jeff Guinn is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. He appears as an expert guest in documentaries and on television programs on a variety of topics.
Guinn lives in Fort Worth, Texas.
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June 20, 2021
“Virgil [Earp] commanded, ‘Throw up your hands, boys. I intend to disarm you.’ Frank McLaury answered, ‘We will’ with the possible intention of adding ‘not,’ but even as he uttered the first two words the cowboys began to move. Their friends gaping from the street would testify that Frank and Billy [Claiborne] started to raise their hands while Tom [McLaury] threw open his coat to indicate he wasn’t armed, but the Earps would recall that they heard instead the sound of pistol hammers being cocked. Everyone’s nerves were so overwrought that even the slightest twitch of a hand on either side was instinctively interpreted by the other side as initiating an attack…”
- Jeff Guinn, The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral – and How it Changed the American West
Some years ago, back before we had children, my wife and I drove into Tombstone, Arizona as part of a summer road trip. It was late in the season, and hot as an oven, and my first reaction was that it was like Deadwood without the people.
The streets – asphalt, not dirt – were desolate, and it took little imagination to conjure tumbleweed blowing across our path. There were stores – a collection of western outfitters all selling the same boots and Remington paintings – but few customers. To no one’s surprise, there was a restaurant called the O.K. Café, an establishment name so obvious I didn't even take a picture.
Well, I took a picture, but I didn’t feel proud of myself.
The putative site of the gunfight – the legendary O.K. Corral itself – was locked up for the day. I wasn’t too distressed, because I wouldn’t have paid to get inside anyway, seeing as how the actual gunfight took place in a vacant lot on the corner of Fremont and 3rd. We went to the Courthouse Museum where we learned a lot, but mostly that empty old courthouse museums are a bit creepy. Finally, we ended up eating at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, named after Doc Holliday’s erstwhile lover and traveling companion. There were no other patrons, so the flat-screen televisions that played Tombstone on an endless loop flickered to an audience that did not exist.
In short, the Tombstone we visited was doing a pretty good impression of its late-19th century self. That is to say, like any boom town gone bust, it was empty.
Our brief visit perfectly encapsulates what I feel about the O.K. Corral. It’s all hat and no cattle.
The O.K. Corral barely rates as a historical footnote. It was a gang fight, a local quarrel played out on a tiny stage with few actual reverberations other than to those directly affected by it. Yet, for whatever reason, the seconds-long shootout has become part of the mythology of the American West, dramatically overrepresented in novels and films.
(One theory as to its longevity: that catchy name. I venture a guess that if the gunfight took place at Kjellfrid Dagfinn’s Corral, we might all have forgotten about it long ago.)
Jeff Guinn’s The Last Gunfight is a densely-detailed, serious-minded, 300-plus page account of a fleeting scrap of western lore. Though the ingredients here are the stuff of dime-novels, Guinn is a rock-solid historian who is impressively unwilling to go anywhere but where the facts lead.
With that said, let’s start with what this book does not do.
The Last Gunfight’s subtitle – no doubt the fault of some eager copy editor – proclaims the O.K. Corral as the gunfight that “changed the American West.” To Guinn’s credit, at no point does he attempt to prove this lofty claim. I doubt he could.
By 1881, the year the gunfight occurred, there wasn’t a whole lot of time left for the American West to change. It would not be long before it drifted inexorably over the clifftop of reality into the chasm of myth. Custer was already dead; Wild Bill Hickok was already dead; Crazy Horse was already dead. In nine more years, the 1890 census would close the American Frontier.
That doesn’t mean that Guinn still doesn’t blow this event out of all proportion. This is the kind of book that unabashedly opens with a chapter called “the West,” and then brazenly attempts to distill its history into less than 20 pages. This is also the kind of book where the build-up to the bloodbath is agonizingly drawn, freighted with repeat references to tumbling dominoes.
With that said, I still enjoyed parts of this a lot.
Despite what I’ve expressed, I appreciate the earnestness with which Guinn treats his subject. He is obviously fascinated by it – gathering minutiae as though it were gold flakes – and he takes apparent joy in sharing every last scrap of his research. I would never begrudge a person their passions and obsessions, having more than a few ones of my own.
The story Guinn tells has all the familiar ingredients familiar from Hollywood renditions. Tombstone, the booming center of a silver rush, with pretensions to be an arid San Francisco. Wyatt Earp, the “famed” lawman from Dodge, fresh arrived with brothers Morgan and Virgil. The Cowboys, a gang of rustlers that included quick-draw artist Johnny Ringo, enigmatic Curly Bill Brocius, and preposterous bumbler Ike Clanton. Nipping at the edges of this circus was suave little Johnny Behan, the county sheriff.
And at the center was a woman, Josephine Marcus, of whom little is known and much is speculated.
In common telling, the Earps are the white hats and the Cowboys are the black hats; the Earps represented law and order and civilization, while the Cowboys held to the lawless, violent past. If only things broke so clean.
The Last Gunfight probably classifies as a “deconstruction” of the O.K. Corral. Sometimes, however, it felt less like Guinn was stripping away mythological elements, than he was adding plot convolutions. By the time I finished this, I was actually a bit confused. Relative to other western gunfights, it’s really quite complicated!
When we finally get to the main event – two hundred pages into the book – it is delivered with confidence and aplomb and ridiculous specificity. Of course, much of the eyewitness testimony – on which Guinn bases his account – has to be viewed critically, since all the participants had reason to lie (with one of the biggest fibbers being Wyatt himself). I don’t think that really matters. This is not the kind of book that had me constantly turning to the endnotes or parsing the sources (though this is scrupulously sourced). Instead, I mainly enjoyed the ride.
While the leadup to the O.K. Corral can be distractingly tedious, the aftermath is excellent. Wyatt Earp’s infamous “revenge ride” after his brother Morgan’s assassination gets surprisingly little treatment, likely due to a dearth of credible sources. Instead, the bulk of the post-O.K. Corral material is made up of the Inquest into the deaths of Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury, who died at the hands of the Earps and Doc Holliday. This section if probably the best of the book, combining an interesting primer on Federal Territorial law with a lot of first-person testimony regarding the Earp/Clanton feud.
The Last Gunfight is not nearly as good as Guinn’s books on Charles Manson and Jim Jones. The reason, I think, is that Manson and Jones live up to their ghoulish reputations. The truth about those two charismatic murderers beats all fiction you can dream.
The O.K. Corral, on the other hand, becomes less interesting the more you excavate it. By the glaring lamp of the historian, a classic morality tale becomes a complex turf war over intensely local stakes. In the end, the drama emanating from Tombstone – the gunfight, the revenge killings, the mysterious death of Johnny Ringo – lend themselves far better to dramatists than the scholar.
- Jeff Guinn, The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral – and How it Changed the American West
Some years ago, back before we had children, my wife and I drove into Tombstone, Arizona as part of a summer road trip. It was late in the season, and hot as an oven, and my first reaction was that it was like Deadwood without the people.
The streets – asphalt, not dirt – were desolate, and it took little imagination to conjure tumbleweed blowing across our path. There were stores – a collection of western outfitters all selling the same boots and Remington paintings – but few customers. To no one’s surprise, there was a restaurant called the O.K. Café, an establishment name so obvious I didn't even take a picture.
Well, I took a picture, but I didn’t feel proud of myself.
The putative site of the gunfight – the legendary O.K. Corral itself – was locked up for the day. I wasn’t too distressed, because I wouldn’t have paid to get inside anyway, seeing as how the actual gunfight took place in a vacant lot on the corner of Fremont and 3rd. We went to the Courthouse Museum where we learned a lot, but mostly that empty old courthouse museums are a bit creepy. Finally, we ended up eating at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, named after Doc Holliday’s erstwhile lover and traveling companion. There were no other patrons, so the flat-screen televisions that played Tombstone on an endless loop flickered to an audience that did not exist.
In short, the Tombstone we visited was doing a pretty good impression of its late-19th century self. That is to say, like any boom town gone bust, it was empty.
Our brief visit perfectly encapsulates what I feel about the O.K. Corral. It’s all hat and no cattle.
The O.K. Corral barely rates as a historical footnote. It was a gang fight, a local quarrel played out on a tiny stage with few actual reverberations other than to those directly affected by it. Yet, for whatever reason, the seconds-long shootout has become part of the mythology of the American West, dramatically overrepresented in novels and films.
(One theory as to its longevity: that catchy name. I venture a guess that if the gunfight took place at Kjellfrid Dagfinn’s Corral, we might all have forgotten about it long ago.)
Jeff Guinn’s The Last Gunfight is a densely-detailed, serious-minded, 300-plus page account of a fleeting scrap of western lore. Though the ingredients here are the stuff of dime-novels, Guinn is a rock-solid historian who is impressively unwilling to go anywhere but where the facts lead.
With that said, let’s start with what this book does not do.
The Last Gunfight’s subtitle – no doubt the fault of some eager copy editor – proclaims the O.K. Corral as the gunfight that “changed the American West.” To Guinn’s credit, at no point does he attempt to prove this lofty claim. I doubt he could.
By 1881, the year the gunfight occurred, there wasn’t a whole lot of time left for the American West to change. It would not be long before it drifted inexorably over the clifftop of reality into the chasm of myth. Custer was already dead; Wild Bill Hickok was already dead; Crazy Horse was already dead. In nine more years, the 1890 census would close the American Frontier.
That doesn’t mean that Guinn still doesn’t blow this event out of all proportion. This is the kind of book that unabashedly opens with a chapter called “the West,” and then brazenly attempts to distill its history into less than 20 pages. This is also the kind of book where the build-up to the bloodbath is agonizingly drawn, freighted with repeat references to tumbling dominoes.
With that said, I still enjoyed parts of this a lot.
Despite what I’ve expressed, I appreciate the earnestness with which Guinn treats his subject. He is obviously fascinated by it – gathering minutiae as though it were gold flakes – and he takes apparent joy in sharing every last scrap of his research. I would never begrudge a person their passions and obsessions, having more than a few ones of my own.
The story Guinn tells has all the familiar ingredients familiar from Hollywood renditions. Tombstone, the booming center of a silver rush, with pretensions to be an arid San Francisco. Wyatt Earp, the “famed” lawman from Dodge, fresh arrived with brothers Morgan and Virgil. The Cowboys, a gang of rustlers that included quick-draw artist Johnny Ringo, enigmatic Curly Bill Brocius, and preposterous bumbler Ike Clanton. Nipping at the edges of this circus was suave little Johnny Behan, the county sheriff.
And at the center was a woman, Josephine Marcus, of whom little is known and much is speculated.
In common telling, the Earps are the white hats and the Cowboys are the black hats; the Earps represented law and order and civilization, while the Cowboys held to the lawless, violent past. If only things broke so clean.
The Last Gunfight probably classifies as a “deconstruction” of the O.K. Corral. Sometimes, however, it felt less like Guinn was stripping away mythological elements, than he was adding plot convolutions. By the time I finished this, I was actually a bit confused. Relative to other western gunfights, it’s really quite complicated!
When we finally get to the main event – two hundred pages into the book – it is delivered with confidence and aplomb and ridiculous specificity. Of course, much of the eyewitness testimony – on which Guinn bases his account – has to be viewed critically, since all the participants had reason to lie (with one of the biggest fibbers being Wyatt himself). I don’t think that really matters. This is not the kind of book that had me constantly turning to the endnotes or parsing the sources (though this is scrupulously sourced). Instead, I mainly enjoyed the ride.
While the leadup to the O.K. Corral can be distractingly tedious, the aftermath is excellent. Wyatt Earp’s infamous “revenge ride” after his brother Morgan’s assassination gets surprisingly little treatment, likely due to a dearth of credible sources. Instead, the bulk of the post-O.K. Corral material is made up of the Inquest into the deaths of Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury, who died at the hands of the Earps and Doc Holliday. This section if probably the best of the book, combining an interesting primer on Federal Territorial law with a lot of first-person testimony regarding the Earp/Clanton feud.
The Last Gunfight is not nearly as good as Guinn’s books on Charles Manson and Jim Jones. The reason, I think, is that Manson and Jones live up to their ghoulish reputations. The truth about those two charismatic murderers beats all fiction you can dream.
The O.K. Corral, on the other hand, becomes less interesting the more you excavate it. By the glaring lamp of the historian, a classic morality tale becomes a complex turf war over intensely local stakes. In the end, the drama emanating from Tombstone – the gunfight, the revenge killings, the mysterious death of Johnny Ringo – lend themselves far better to dramatists than the scholar.
June 7, 2021
Tombstone, a town every western history buff has heard of, and one which I visited a few years ago. The Gunfight at OK Corral, another name everyone is pretty familiar with even if you are not a history buff.
What happened, who is to blame, and can anyone really tell the real story about the town and the shootout? Many books have been written on this topi, many either side with the Earp's or with tyhe Clanton's. It is hard to find that middle ground of reality. This book tries, and does a good job with the history of Tombstone up until the Earp's enter the picture. It seems to me that when reading the first 200+ pages of the book this author makes every assumption or opinion agains the Earp family. It is funny, Wyatt comes to Tombstone with his common law wife and must hide due to that fact. Johnny Behan, who will become sheriff, comes with his common law wife and has no such worries according to the author. So many assumptions all fall against the Earp family and you begin to wonder about objectivity. And then we get into the gunfight.
Is there anyone to blame? From my reading of this book and so many others, that blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Ike Clanton, a loud-mouth windbag who continually wants to shoot and kill the Earp's and who goads everyone into action. The second is John Behan who is almost a clownish example of a sheriff. His posses never find outlaws, he associates with the Cowboys, he lies to one and all, and he has numerous prisoners escape from his jail.
Justice is a word used infrequently in the west and this book gives numerous examples of justice denied. Wyatt's vendetta ride is basically due to that lack of justice and how witnesses would lie to protect their friends, or family.
This is a good book, I feel there are better, but it just continues to pile onto the already massive amounts of books on the topic. There is no right or wrong, there is no middle ground or "real" story. All that is lost in history, and even many of the new sources still are unable to give us the answer and reasons for the gunfight. However, even if you read this book you cannot come to any other conclusion that there was an inept, buffoon-like sheriff who wanted to be reelected, and wanted fame and fortune; and then there is the guy who just cannot shut up, who just cannot stop drinking and making threats about a fight but when the fight comes he usually runs away.
What happened, who is to blame, and can anyone really tell the real story about the town and the shootout? Many books have been written on this topi, many either side with the Earp's or with tyhe Clanton's. It is hard to find that middle ground of reality. This book tries, and does a good job with the history of Tombstone up until the Earp's enter the picture. It seems to me that when reading the first 200+ pages of the book this author makes every assumption or opinion agains the Earp family. It is funny, Wyatt comes to Tombstone with his common law wife and must hide due to that fact. Johnny Behan, who will become sheriff, comes with his common law wife and has no such worries according to the author. So many assumptions all fall against the Earp family and you begin to wonder about objectivity. And then we get into the gunfight.
Is there anyone to blame? From my reading of this book and so many others, that blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Ike Clanton, a loud-mouth windbag who continually wants to shoot and kill the Earp's and who goads everyone into action. The second is John Behan who is almost a clownish example of a sheriff. His posses never find outlaws, he associates with the Cowboys, he lies to one and all, and he has numerous prisoners escape from his jail.
Justice is a word used infrequently in the west and this book gives numerous examples of justice denied. Wyatt's vendetta ride is basically due to that lack of justice and how witnesses would lie to protect their friends, or family.
This is a good book, I feel there are better, but it just continues to pile onto the already massive amounts of books on the topic. There is no right or wrong, there is no middle ground or "real" story. All that is lost in history, and even many of the new sources still are unable to give us the answer and reasons for the gunfight. However, even if you read this book you cannot come to any other conclusion that there was an inept, buffoon-like sheriff who wanted to be reelected, and wanted fame and fortune; and then there is the guy who just cannot shut up, who just cannot stop drinking and making threats about a fight but when the fight comes he usually runs away.
August 12, 2016
"Fight is my racket."
- Ike Clanton to Wyatt Earp
It is hard for me to avoid liking this book. Having grown up in the West, fed on a solid diet of Gunsmoke, John Wayne, guns, etc., the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was part of the narrative dust of my childhood.
Not to mention that five years after the shooting in Tombstone, AZ my paternal grandmother's maternal grandfather's maternal grandfather was shot and killed by (depending on the story and myth) either cattle rustlers he had cornered, or remnants of Butch Cassidy's gang who wanted to see if they could put a hole through a Mormon (you know, protective Mormon underwear). Anyway, on Christmas day of 1886, my 5th great(?) grandfather was shot and killed, leaving behind four wives (Sarah, Lucy, Catherine, and Elizabeth).
The posse that went after Billy Evans, aka J.W. Dimon, aka Jack Diamond, aka W.N. Timberline was headed by J.R. Woolsey (my 4th great grandfather and the husband of James Hale's first wife Sarah).
I even lived for a while in Glenwood Springs, Colorado just a couple streets over from where Doc Holliday died, not from gunshot wounds, but TB.
Anyway, these stories of gunfights, cowboys, prostitutes, miners, rustlers, and dirty ne'er-do-wells have floated around me for years like mythical mouches volantes, so I love Guinn's attempt to separate the blood from the smoke, the men from the lore. It was a very good book, just not a great book. Perhaps, the myth is already too established. There is no way to put the gunfighting genies of the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday back in the historical bottle. Their stories have woven themselves into the bullshitty fabric of Arizona, the West, and America too deeply. The reality is there, and Jeff Guinn has uncovered a lot of it, but there is no real competition with Hollywood and our own desperate fable-making abilities.
- Ike Clanton to Wyatt Earp
It is hard for me to avoid liking this book. Having grown up in the West, fed on a solid diet of Gunsmoke, John Wayne, guns, etc., the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was part of the narrative dust of my childhood.
Not to mention that five years after the shooting in Tombstone, AZ my paternal grandmother's maternal grandfather's maternal grandfather was shot and killed by (depending on the story and myth) either cattle rustlers he had cornered, or remnants of Butch Cassidy's gang who wanted to see if they could put a hole through a Mormon (you know, protective Mormon underwear). Anyway, on Christmas day of 1886, my 5th great(?) grandfather was shot and killed, leaving behind four wives (Sarah, Lucy, Catherine, and Elizabeth).
The posse that went after Billy Evans, aka J.W. Dimon, aka Jack Diamond, aka W.N. Timberline was headed by J.R. Woolsey (my 4th great grandfather and the husband of James Hale's first wife Sarah).
I even lived for a while in Glenwood Springs, Colorado just a couple streets over from where Doc Holliday died, not from gunshot wounds, but TB.
Anyway, these stories of gunfights, cowboys, prostitutes, miners, rustlers, and dirty ne'er-do-wells have floated around me for years like mythical mouches volantes, so I love Guinn's attempt to separate the blood from the smoke, the men from the lore. It was a very good book, just not a great book. Perhaps, the myth is already too established. There is no way to put the gunfighting genies of the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday back in the historical bottle. Their stories have woven themselves into the bullshitty fabric of Arizona, the West, and America too deeply. The reality is there, and Jeff Guinn has uncovered a lot of it, but there is no real competition with Hollywood and our own desperate fable-making abilities.
July 2, 2012
Wanna be a little bit pretentious? STEP 1: Read this book. STEP 2: Watch Tombstone with friends. STEP 3: have fun pointing out all the little errors in the movie! Your friends will love it. I promise.
Unlike Every Day Life in the Wild West, the Last Gunfight actually gives a good idea of what life was back in the wild west. It does so by giving the abbreviated histories of nearly everybody involved in the legendary Tombstone gunfight. So you not only learn what it was like to have been a gunslinger in a frontier boomtown, but you get to learn a little history, too.
It's actually surprising how much more interesting the real story was. Usually the opposite is true - the boring story with a nugget of interesting is gussied up to be as cool as possible for the big ol' Hollywood retelling. It's better for two reasons: one, you learn that the gunfight was not a shootout between the forces of good and evil. There were shades of gray, with heroic villains and villainous heroes on both sides. You still find yourself rooting for the Earps (at least, I did), but you can kind of understand the other side, too. It really boils down to law and order versus freedom and individuality. Both good things, and both bad if embraced fully on their own.
The other thing that makes it interesting is all the shit involved that you wouldn't have seen in the movie. Love triangles! Political intrigue! Courtroom drama! Seriously, they had surprise witnesses and the sudden appearance of a highly qualified attorney related to one of the victims and the sort of thing that makes TV courtroom shows look ridiculously unrealistic.
Jeff Guinn has one of those rare talents, too, to make history interesting. Just the style of writing kept me hooked - I never felt like I had to force myself to read another page of dry fact recitation. The exception to this is the second chapter, about the formation of the Wild West. It's important, yeah, but kind of boring. Trust me, it gets much better.
The ending was kind of weak, too. The entire book was building towards a climax that, once over, destroyed all the sense of tension in the book. Even something as interesting as the Vendetta Ride shouldn't have been such a difficult read, and I get the feeling that Guinn (like the reader) had somewhat lost interest at that point. The very last chapter talked about the gunfight's effect on popular culture, including the books and movies that had been made in its honor. Surprisingly, there is not one reference to the Tombstone movie most people might know and love. I think an entire chapter could have been spent comparing the film to the history. Oh, well.
Still a great read, especially if you're into the genre. Even if not, though, it's still definitely worth your time!
Unlike Every Day Life in the Wild West, the Last Gunfight actually gives a good idea of what life was back in the wild west. It does so by giving the abbreviated histories of nearly everybody involved in the legendary Tombstone gunfight. So you not only learn what it was like to have been a gunslinger in a frontier boomtown, but you get to learn a little history, too.
It's actually surprising how much more interesting the real story was. Usually the opposite is true - the boring story with a nugget of interesting is gussied up to be as cool as possible for the big ol' Hollywood retelling. It's better for two reasons: one, you learn that the gunfight was not a shootout between the forces of good and evil. There were shades of gray, with heroic villains and villainous heroes on both sides. You still find yourself rooting for the Earps (at least, I did), but you can kind of understand the other side, too. It really boils down to law and order versus freedom and individuality. Both good things, and both bad if embraced fully on their own.
The other thing that makes it interesting is all the shit involved that you wouldn't have seen in the movie. Love triangles! Political intrigue! Courtroom drama! Seriously, they had surprise witnesses and the sudden appearance of a highly qualified attorney related to one of the victims and the sort of thing that makes TV courtroom shows look ridiculously unrealistic.
Jeff Guinn has one of those rare talents, too, to make history interesting. Just the style of writing kept me hooked - I never felt like I had to force myself to read another page of dry fact recitation. The exception to this is the second chapter, about the formation of the Wild West. It's important, yeah, but kind of boring. Trust me, it gets much better.
The ending was kind of weak, too. The entire book was building towards a climax that, once over, destroyed all the sense of tension in the book. Even something as interesting as the Vendetta Ride shouldn't have been such a difficult read, and I get the feeling that Guinn (like the reader) had somewhat lost interest at that point. The very last chapter talked about the gunfight's effect on popular culture, including the books and movies that had been made in its honor. Surprisingly, there is not one reference to the Tombstone movie most people might know and love. I think an entire chapter could have been spent comparing the film to the history. Oh, well.
Still a great read, especially if you're into the genre. Even if not, though, it's still definitely worth your time!
May 11, 2023
Tombstone - if you’re going to have the most eventful gunfight of the Wild West of the US, could you pick a town with a more ominous title?
Now throw in names like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and, make it at the — OK Corral.
It’s a script that writes itself, and it has many times in hundreds of movies, television shows, books, articles, reenactments.
I’ve wondered how historians deal with ancient events, such as Roman times, how do they get reliable information? With this shootout, which took place October 1881, the problem is there is too much information ! From day 1, there were interviews, stories, publicity, and press coverage.
Author Guinn does a great job of sifting through all the rumors, myths and legends that surround the town to tell us, well, probably what happened, and the parts that can be certainly known.
Additionally many of the characters involved, well those that weren’t dead, lived years to tell, re-tell and rearrange their tales, some for personal publicity, into the 1940s. Wyatt Earp died in an LA apartment in 1929 ! Boggles my mind you could take him to a saloon for a whiskey and talk to the man himself, check your gun at the door.
Guinn weaves a great tale of how Tombstone and the region was populated, the beginnings of the various characters involved, how they became lawmen, or outlaws; (and how the two are often interchangeable) how the media had an important role, along with elections and, ambition.
What is not shown in the movies is the followup, of which takes up the second half of the book. The Earps and Holliday were in more trouble with the following trial for the shootout, and then there is the vengeance sought by the outlaws. Not to be outdone, the following Wyatt Earp vendetta is legendary in itself.
I’ve read Guinn’s books on Bonnie & Clyde and Charles Manson, he puts forth an accurate, and tells you why it is, and entertaining story.
Now throw in names like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and, make it at the — OK Corral.
It’s a script that writes itself, and it has many times in hundreds of movies, television shows, books, articles, reenactments.
I’ve wondered how historians deal with ancient events, such as Roman times, how do they get reliable information? With this shootout, which took place October 1881, the problem is there is too much information ! From day 1, there were interviews, stories, publicity, and press coverage.
Author Guinn does a great job of sifting through all the rumors, myths and legends that surround the town to tell us, well, probably what happened, and the parts that can be certainly known.
Additionally many of the characters involved, well those that weren’t dead, lived years to tell, re-tell and rearrange their tales, some for personal publicity, into the 1940s. Wyatt Earp died in an LA apartment in 1929 ! Boggles my mind you could take him to a saloon for a whiskey and talk to the man himself, check your gun at the door.
Guinn weaves a great tale of how Tombstone and the region was populated, the beginnings of the various characters involved, how they became lawmen, or outlaws; (and how the two are often interchangeable) how the media had an important role, along with elections and, ambition.
What is not shown in the movies is the followup, of which takes up the second half of the book. The Earps and Holliday were in more trouble with the following trial for the shootout, and then there is the vengeance sought by the outlaws. Not to be outdone, the following Wyatt Earp vendetta is legendary in itself.
I’ve read Guinn’s books on Bonnie & Clyde and Charles Manson, he puts forth an accurate, and tells you why it is, and entertaining story.
December 22, 2011
This is an extremely well researched book about, not just the gunfight at the O.K. corral, which actually took place in a vacant lot near the O.K. corral but about the history of the Earps, the Clantons, the Arizona territory and the township of Tombstone and why it was named Tombstone. The "blood and thunder" hyperbole that was common in books written about the frontier characters was foundational in the massive amount of "cowboy" movies and tv shows that peaked in the 1950's. Matt Dillon, the main character in Gunsmoke was actually a characterization of Wyatt Earp. The movie Tombstone is one of my all time favorites and to show Ike Clanton begging the "lawmen" not to shoot because he was unarmed is actually what happened. Johnny Ringo really was a notorius cowboy who got in an argument with Doc Holiday but now I know how he really died. I know this is THE most often overused phrase in nonfiction but the facts surrounding the events in Tombstone in and around 1880 are far more interesting than fiction. BTW I don't think they could have picked a better man to portray Wyatt Earp than Kurt Russell and Doc really did use the term, "you're a daisy if you do".
February 14, 2017
This book reminded me of the line from the John Wayne movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." I was reminded of it because Jeff Guinn did the opposite. Through a lot of research, he worked to trace back the beginnings of the "Gunfight at the OK Corral." In doing so, he actually wound up making the story of the one of the most-famous gunfights in history less interesting, though it was more correct than story of legend.
Guinn writes well, don't get me wrong. The reason I got this book is because I so thoroughly enjoy his book about Bonnie and Clyde "Go Down Together." It's just that in unraveling the knotted threads of the tapestry that is the story of the gunfight, the picture just wasn't as interesting when he wove it back together. How could it be? Over the years, the story has been written primarily to create action, adventure and suspense.
While Guinn did his best to make things as accurate as possible, it seems like he ran into trouble because all of his sources tended to disagree on a lot of points. He had to try and sort out bias and inaccuracies in the media and self-justifying autobiographies and journals. All and all, I think he does a good job at this, but I found myself wondering if someone else could look at the same materials and draw a different picture of what happened in Tombstone.
Guinn writes well, don't get me wrong. The reason I got this book is because I so thoroughly enjoy his book about Bonnie and Clyde "Go Down Together." It's just that in unraveling the knotted threads of the tapestry that is the story of the gunfight, the picture just wasn't as interesting when he wove it back together. How could it be? Over the years, the story has been written primarily to create action, adventure and suspense.
While Guinn did his best to make things as accurate as possible, it seems like he ran into trouble because all of his sources tended to disagree on a lot of points. He had to try and sort out bias and inaccuracies in the media and self-justifying autobiographies and journals. All and all, I think he does a good job at this, but I found myself wondering if someone else could look at the same materials and draw a different picture of what happened in Tombstone.
August 28, 2011
If you only want to read one book on Gunfight at the OK Corral - this is the best book on it.
Now for my longer review:
I've been studying the Gunfight at the OK Corral since I was in the 8th grade when I did my first book report on Wyatt Earp. And I've read entire books dedicated on Earp and Doc Holliday - so I had to keep that in mind when reading this book. Basically there's a lot of stuff I already knew but most people probably won't know.
The Gunfight at the OK Corral remains with us because it's such an intriguing event and because of Tombstone's relatively cosmopolitan environment - we have a strong newspaper record of the events. It was the "OJ" trial of its day. Including having one newspaper "pro-Earp" and one newspaper "anti-Earp".
Plus you have politics (Wyatt was promised a sheriff's job by Johnny Behan), a love triangle (the girl Wyatt runs away with Johnny's girlfriend) and colorful characters (Doc Holliday wanted to die in a gunfight - not by TB, Johnny Ringo - probably the best gunfighter in the West was probably educated enough to be college professor). And everyone involved is neither 100% good nor 100% bad.
This book while a bit dry - does provide a good overview of the founding of Tombstone, how the cast of characters ended up there, the gunfight and the aftermath.
Now for my longer review:
I've been studying the Gunfight at the OK Corral since I was in the 8th grade when I did my first book report on Wyatt Earp. And I've read entire books dedicated on Earp and Doc Holliday - so I had to keep that in mind when reading this book. Basically there's a lot of stuff I already knew but most people probably won't know.
The Gunfight at the OK Corral remains with us because it's such an intriguing event and because of Tombstone's relatively cosmopolitan environment - we have a strong newspaper record of the events. It was the "OJ" trial of its day. Including having one newspaper "pro-Earp" and one newspaper "anti-Earp".
Plus you have politics (Wyatt was promised a sheriff's job by Johnny Behan), a love triangle (the girl Wyatt runs away with Johnny's girlfriend) and colorful characters (Doc Holliday wanted to die in a gunfight - not by TB, Johnny Ringo - probably the best gunfighter in the West was probably educated enough to be college professor). And everyone involved is neither 100% good nor 100% bad.
This book while a bit dry - does provide a good overview of the founding of Tombstone, how the cast of characters ended up there, the gunfight and the aftermath.
September 19, 2015
Good book if you are interested in White Hats & Black Hats of the old West. Kinda long in the tooth but fair report on the Wyatt & his brothers. My favorite bio was on Doc Holliday though.
September 16, 2012
One of the more disappointing reads I've had in while. I picked this up at the discount table of a local bookstore, and maybe that should have tipped me off. What should have tipped me off even more was reading the first chapter which struck me as a rambling, unfocused, and generally uninteresting hodge podge of generalities, but I figured it would probably get better once the author got into the real subject matter of the book. And it did, in a way - the generalities were gone, but there were a whole new set of problems with his narrative style.
He seems to have a genuine grudge against the Earps and is overly unsympathetic to their enemies, but that's the least of the problems - I have no illusions that the Earps were squeaky clean. But aside from having a definite slant, he's frequently telling us what various characters were thinking when it's obviously impossible to tell, and he has a bad habit of passing off sheer conjecture as established fact.
The Earps appear to be one of those subjects on which there's still a lot of controversy, but I don't think this book adds anything to the story. There are other books on the subject, so unless you're really up on the subject and are up for a fairly outrageous take on it, this isn't the one I'd dig into.
If you don't want to take my word for it, though, just take the Jeff Guinn challenge. Read the first chapter - if it seems good to you, then maybe Jeff is just your cup of tea. But if you think it's lousy, heed my warning - it doesn't get any better.
He seems to have a genuine grudge against the Earps and is overly unsympathetic to their enemies, but that's the least of the problems - I have no illusions that the Earps were squeaky clean. But aside from having a definite slant, he's frequently telling us what various characters were thinking when it's obviously impossible to tell, and he has a bad habit of passing off sheer conjecture as established fact.
The Earps appear to be one of those subjects on which there's still a lot of controversy, but I don't think this book adds anything to the story. There are other books on the subject, so unless you're really up on the subject and are up for a fairly outrageous take on it, this isn't the one I'd dig into.
If you don't want to take my word for it, though, just take the Jeff Guinn challenge. Read the first chapter - if it seems good to you, then maybe Jeff is just your cup of tea. But if you think it's lousy, heed my warning - it doesn't get any better.
August 23, 2020
Because I enjoyed reading Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, when I wanted to read a book about Wyatt Earp, I chose Jeff Guinn's book.
This was a terrific read. Really historically accurate and entertaining. Jeff Guinn is a great historian and storyteller. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday will remain among my list of heroes forever.
This was a terrific read. Really historically accurate and entertaining. Jeff Guinn is a great historian and storyteller. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday will remain among my list of heroes forever.
April 28, 2020
Jeff Guinn has a system for writing books. He goes and talks to people, witnesses and relatives if he can get them. He interviews people who have written books on the subject and other researchers. And then he synthesizes it all into beautifully readable text. I don't know if this is the BEST book on Wyatt Earp and Tombstone and the Gunfight (somewhere near) the O.K. Corral that I have read (that honor may belong to Paula Mitchell Marks' To Die in the West), but it is a very balanced, very readable, very historically conscientious account of what happened to the best of anybody's ability to tell. Guinn also does a great job of explaining the AFTERMATH of the gunfight, the inquest, and the hearing, and how it came about that the Earps (Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan) and Doc Holliday WEREN'T prosecuted for murder. And his last chapter is a thoughtful exploration of how the event---a shoot-out in a vacant lot where both sides were wrong and both sides lied about it afterwards---turned into the epitome of Good defeating Evil as it plays out in the "Wild West" of our collective (white) American imagination. Excellent book.
December 4, 2017
I tried listening to the audio version of this book. The narrator was very good (his voice was so familiar too!), but it just wasn't keeping my attention. I hate to give it a poor rating because I'm sure it's a good book full of interesting information.
May 23, 2025
Let's call this a strong 3.5 stars. Westerns and the history of the west usually leaves me yawning, but this book certainly works hard to present a more realistic and balance portrait behind the legends of Tombstone, the OK Corral & the Earps. You get the myth & you get the reality, and if this corner of history is your thing, you'll find a winner.
Read
December 30, 2024Just finished:
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.
This book examines the characters and events leading up to the shootout between the Earps and Clantons in Tombstone, Arizona.
Personality I thought the book took too long to lead up to the events that took place near the O.K. Corral. That said, I like reading about the Old West because they expose myths about our conceptions about the time. I will give a few examples.
1. Many of the towns that Wyatt Earp served as a lawman had statues on the books against carrying guns in city limits.
2. Towns on the cattle trails wanted their lawmen to settle issues with the least amount of violence possible. Cowtowns wanted to separate the recently paid cowboys of their money, not start trouble which would lead to cowboys not coming back.
3. Wyatt Earp rarely resolved problems by shooting. He usually hit cowboys over the head with the butt of his gun to subdue them.
4. The famous shootout could have been avoided if Virgil Earp had taken Ike Clanton's threats seriously.
5. There was a trial after the shootout.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.
This book examines the characters and events leading up to the shootout between the Earps and Clantons in Tombstone, Arizona.
Personality I thought the book took too long to lead up to the events that took place near the O.K. Corral. That said, I like reading about the Old West because they expose myths about our conceptions about the time. I will give a few examples.
1. Many of the towns that Wyatt Earp served as a lawman had statues on the books against carrying guns in city limits.
2. Towns on the cattle trails wanted their lawmen to settle issues with the least amount of violence possible. Cowtowns wanted to separate the recently paid cowboys of their money, not start trouble which would lead to cowboys not coming back.
3. Wyatt Earp rarely resolved problems by shooting. He usually hit cowboys over the head with the butt of his gun to subdue them.
4. The famous shootout could have been avoided if Virgil Earp had taken Ike Clanton's threats seriously.
5. There was a trial after the shootout.
March 14, 2012
This is a realistic interpretation of the "shootout at the OK Corral" (which didn't happen there), and the events and people leading up to it, and afterward.
Serious western history aficionados know that nobody involved here was a saint. That said, some recent revision has attempted to make Wyatt Earp into a thug, and he wasn't that either.
Guinn does a good job of showing that Earp, before Tombstone, rarely fired his gun, rather using the gun butt or barrel to control drovers in Dodge City and elsewhere.
As for the "showdown," he says that, while a variety of tensions had been building, it was Ike Clanton's alcohol-fueled bragging that was the trigger.
Beyond both the Earps and Clantons were GOP/Democrat party politics, cattle rustling vs. respectability, stage robbers vs. Wells Fargo and more.
Even some earlier histories of the fight have failed to catch the full complexity.
Guinn also shows how Earp family ego was behind events. A family that had moved across the Meidwest, then the West, for multiple generations, yet generally failed to attain the level of recognition family patriarchs believed it deserved, was a major issue.
Serious western history aficionados know that nobody involved here was a saint. That said, some recent revision has attempted to make Wyatt Earp into a thug, and he wasn't that either.
Guinn does a good job of showing that Earp, before Tombstone, rarely fired his gun, rather using the gun butt or barrel to control drovers in Dodge City and elsewhere.
As for the "showdown," he says that, while a variety of tensions had been building, it was Ike Clanton's alcohol-fueled bragging that was the trigger.
Beyond both the Earps and Clantons were GOP/Democrat party politics, cattle rustling vs. respectability, stage robbers vs. Wells Fargo and more.
Even some earlier histories of the fight have failed to catch the full complexity.
Guinn also shows how Earp family ego was behind events. A family that had moved across the Meidwest, then the West, for multiple generations, yet generally failed to attain the level of recognition family patriarchs believed it deserved, was a major issue.
August 17, 2017
Well researched book on Tombstone, the Earps, Clantons, and the infamous gunfight. Guinn dispels many inaccuracies and myths, and does a great job of describing Tombstone of the time. The real town was more of a prosperous mining town, than portrayed in movies and television. Guinn does an excellent job writing about the court trials, vendetta shootings, and life of the surviving participants including how the event and town have become somewhat mythologized in our culture. The author also does a great job of describing the complex circumstances that led to that fateful day. I would really give this book three and a half stars. The only reason I don't give it four stars is that I found some of the writing a little repetitive at times.
September 20, 2014
This was one of my thrift shop finds ,and was a very good one.Mr Guinn tells a very deep and in my opinion very detailed look at the infamous fight at the o k corral in Thombstone Arizona.If you are a fan of the old west and all the life size people involved in the not so pleasant times check out this book you will be surprised what you learn. I was.
February 9, 2021
It was well crafted and very easy to read and in parts I thought it was interesting. But sadly the last gunfight wasn't really something I feelt overly curious about so it didn't really help that much that it was well written in the end. But I've seen at least on other book by him that seem to be more my taste, so I'll give that a try.
September 15, 2019
DNF. I realized that I actually don’t care about what happened that fateful day in the OK Corral.
February 24, 2025
I drive through Arizona on a regular basis for work and have regularly passed through the small, historic town of Tombstone (formerly called Goose Flat even though the area lacked both the bird and the terrain of that name). Today, AZ Highway 80 runs right through the hilly town and if you’re curious to take a turn off the highway and travel a single block south, you’ll be transported back to the spirit of the late 1880’s with dirt streets, saloons, diners, hotels, horse drawn carriages, actors dressed up with holsters, long coats and cowboy hats touting gunfights happening every hour, and old timey miners ready to take you underground. And don’t worry, there’s plenty of parking and you can get your latte or a craft beer.
The Last Gunfight takes you back to the old American West, from the 1870’s through the boom of Tombstone from 1889-1892 following the characters who’s names you know: Wyatt Earp and his brothers Virgil and Morgan, Doc Holliday, Curly Bill Brocius, Ike Clanton… The author clearly did his research and it shows, with over 200 pages that guide you from how and why the West was the way it was, through the Earp family story and how each character in the drama made their way to Tombstone. Then you finally get to take that bite of the cherry, what Really happened in that gunfight at the O.K Corral? But wait, it didn’t even occur there, the famous gunfight actually occurred a few blocks over in an empty lot on Fremont and 3rd (but that didn’t have that great a name).
Getting to this point was sometimes a chore with the extreme detail and the amount of historical facts that the author inserted to make sure we knew they did their due diligence. But, the aftermath of the gunfight, how Wyatt and his lawyers fought in court, the famous Vendetta Ride against the Cowboys and the winding down of each characters story is a fantastic treat and well worth the sometimes long-winded lead up. We will never know who shot first or who was at fault as every first hand account is a little bit different but we do now have a comprehensive guide to one of the most famous gunfights in the American West.
The Last Gunfight takes you back to the old American West, from the 1870’s through the boom of Tombstone from 1889-1892 following the characters who’s names you know: Wyatt Earp and his brothers Virgil and Morgan, Doc Holliday, Curly Bill Brocius, Ike Clanton… The author clearly did his research and it shows, with over 200 pages that guide you from how and why the West was the way it was, through the Earp family story and how each character in the drama made their way to Tombstone. Then you finally get to take that bite of the cherry, what Really happened in that gunfight at the O.K Corral? But wait, it didn’t even occur there, the famous gunfight actually occurred a few blocks over in an empty lot on Fremont and 3rd (but that didn’t have that great a name).
Getting to this point was sometimes a chore with the extreme detail and the amount of historical facts that the author inserted to make sure we knew they did their due diligence. But, the aftermath of the gunfight, how Wyatt and his lawyers fought in court, the famous Vendetta Ride against the Cowboys and the winding down of each characters story is a fantastic treat and well worth the sometimes long-winded lead up. We will never know who shot first or who was at fault as every first hand account is a little bit different but we do now have a comprehensive guide to one of the most famous gunfights in the American West.
April 17, 2021
As someone who is not a scholar of history in any real way, shape, or form, I bought this book on the recommendation of someone I respect who is.
I can heavily recommend this book for both its bits of humor and its attempt at portraying what happened, while leaving plenty of caveats that many details are in conflict or just lost to history.
The book starts out with a broad introduction to the time and place, and starts narrowing in on Tombstone itself, then on the main figures in the book (The Earps, The Clantons, and Doc), and builds up the various pieces of not just what happened, but also *why* it probably all happened.
One thing to make sure I mention: read the notes at the end. Several have bits of thoughts on the sources the author used and why he agreed or disagreed.
One thing to clarify: A good amount of the book is conjecture, but it's well-researched, and one reason I mentioned reading the notes is where Jeff Guinn clearly states his opinion on how books like this should be written, including adding some extrapolation of what motivations were involved.
I can heavily recommend this book for both its bits of humor and its attempt at portraying what happened, while leaving plenty of caveats that many details are in conflict or just lost to history.
The book starts out with a broad introduction to the time and place, and starts narrowing in on Tombstone itself, then on the main figures in the book (The Earps, The Clantons, and Doc), and builds up the various pieces of not just what happened, but also *why* it probably all happened.
One thing to make sure I mention: read the notes at the end. Several have bits of thoughts on the sources the author used and why he agreed or disagreed.
One thing to clarify: A good amount of the book is conjecture, but it's well-researched, and one reason I mentioned reading the notes is where Jeff Guinn clearly states his opinion on how books like this should be written, including adding some extrapolation of what motivations were involved.
August 22, 2021
Excellent book on the Gunfight At the O. K. Corral. I learned a few more things about the Earp's and the other people involved in the Tombstone area. Always interesting to read books on this subject.
January 23, 2024
Fascinating read. If you don’t know much about this subject, I highly recommend starting with this book the information is great, the writing is done well and it’ll keep you turning the pages.
December 31, 2011
This caught my eye the last time I swung through the library because I really didn’t know the story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral. Mary Doria Russell’s Doc piqued my interest in the subject. [return]Doc was a fictionalize exploration of a man usually portrayed as a cold-blooded killer. Ms. Russell traced his childhood, young adulthood and the course of his tuberculosis and alcoholism, and questioned whether Doc Holliday wasn’t motivated by friendship and self-preservation far more than ill tempered malice. Doc focused on a period preceding the O.K. Corral gunfight by a number of years. [return]Mr. Guinn’s slant is much more traditional, and presents the “Shootout” as his centerpiece. His attention is on the Earps, whom he presents as complex, ambitious men. He dismisses Doc Holliday as a gun-toting brute. Ike Clanton, on the other hand, is portrayed as a blowhard – a stupid and cowardly drunk who inadvertently set the massacre in motion yet escaped with his skin whole. The political aspirations, feuds, ambitions and greed of these and other men precipitated the gunfight, Guinn argues.[return]Many of the primary sources were familiar from Ms. Russell’s volume. This volume offers a background of the forces that created the “Wild, Wild, West”, and of the (mostly men) that populated the deserts and cow-towns – miners, farmers ranchers, drovers, merchants, bankers – and Wells Fargo. Tombstone itself was founded by a prospector who made a big strike after being told that he was prospecting for his own tombstone. [return]In Guinn’s view, the main motivator of the actors – male - was raw ambition. Women barely exist except for whore and wives (who are sometimes the same women),and lack all agency. The sole exception is the “difficult” (a familiar caricature) Josephine, who took up with Wyatt Earp in a tempestuous relationship after he left Tombstone. [return]I found the extensive discussion of the legal repercussions of the shootout fascinating (I would) and the post-history engaging. It’s a detailed look at how the machinations of publicity seekers can change the perception of an event and the people involved. (“Cow-boy”, for example, began as a potent insult implying criminality, not a description of a hardworking ranch hand or good guy.) Guinn traces how Wyatt Earp emerged as a kind of hero post-Tombstone, the “source” for many a cowboy story and movie.
November 4, 2012
The book "The Last Gunfight", written by Jeff Guinn provides a lot of detailed information and facts about the characters within, the west, and the shootout at the O.K. Corral. I personally did not like the book very much. It was a slow read for me and I did not like how there was so much information crammed into the book. I was disappointed that the actual gunfight was only a small portion of the book and not the entire book as I had expected.
My favorite part was the gunfight scene although it was quite brief in comparison to the rest of the book. It kept on pulling me back to want to read more, unlike the rest of the book. This part was very interesting and showed truly how some gunfights in the west during this time period occurred. The main characters in this book were Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, Doc Holliday, and Johnny Behan. These were the protagonists of the story. There were a lot of antagonists who kept coming into play throughout the book as well.
My favorite part was the gunfight scene although it was quite brief in comparison to the rest of the book. It kept on pulling me back to want to read more, unlike the rest of the book. This part was very interesting and showed truly how some gunfights in the west during this time period occurred. The main characters in this book were Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, Doc Holliday, and Johnny Behan. These were the protagonists of the story. There were a lot of antagonists who kept coming into play throughout the book as well.
March 14, 2013
I've read about everything there is to offer on this particular subject....and I found this to be both informative and very entertaining. Each of the more popular titles dealing with the shootout, or Wyatt and the Earps, and of course Doc Holiday, claims to be the end all be all of up to date research...and in the end where you fall really depends on your ability to incorporate new facts and info into your views despite any biases you may harbor..and just how far you're willing to go to verify the facts presented to you in each study. This book gives what I feel is a very balanced account of the individuals, their motivations, and subsequent actions in and around tombstone, AZ in the late 1800's. We will never know the WHOLE story...but I feel this book goes a long way towards presenting as good a picture as is possible at this point.
August 12, 2012
As a student of the "Old West" it was a pleasure to read a thoroughly researched work that debunked the myth of the heroic gun battle at the OK corral, which Professor Guinn correctly explains never took place at that location. I found his characterizations illuminating and honest. He gave a fair description of the times and participants on both sides of the infamous feud between the Earps and the Cowboys. I also enjoyed the background material and his explicit descriptions of the silver strike in southern Arizona and the resulting short-lived boomtown.
I would recommend this to all "fans" of western histroy and folkore. Bravo Jeff Guinn!
I would recommend this to all "fans" of western histroy and folkore. Bravo Jeff Guinn!
December 5, 2019
Very well written and well researched book about the Shootout at the O.K. Corral. The book does an excellent job of explaining the history of those involved, and the events leading up to the famous gunfight. It seems the shootout was not quite as simple as the "good guys" vs. the "bad guys." There was some degree of both good and bad in all the parties involved, and the eventual shootout was a result, to a large degree, of misunderstandings on both sides, as well as failure of the political leadership at the time. If you have any interest in American History, especially history of the "Old West", you will enjoy this book.
July 30, 2014
Good read that separates Hollywood from reality as to what happened in Tombstone in 1881, and the aftermath.
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