[14] According to the Earps' version of events, the fight was in self-defense because the Cowboys, armed in violation of local ordinance, defied a lawful order to hand over their weapons and drew their pistols instead.

[31]: 238 After Wyatt first arrived in Tombstone, his business efforts yielded little profit, and he took a job as a stagecoach shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo, guarding shipments of silver bullion.

[40] One well-documented episode occurred on July 19, 1879, when Holliday and his business partner, former deputy marshal John Joshua Webb, were seated in their saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

[45] To reduce crime in Tombstone, on April 19, 1881, the city council passed ordinance 9, requiring anyone carrying a bowie knife, dirk, pistol or rifle[46][47] to deposit their weapons at a livery or saloon soon after entering town.

Section 3: All fire-arms of every description, and bowie knives and dirks, are included within the prohibition of this ordinance.The ordinance was the legal basis for City Marshal Virgil Earp's decision to confront the Cowboys on the day of the shootout.

The next month Mexican Commandant Felipe Neri dispatched troops to the border,[50]: 110  where they killed five Cowboys, including Newman Haynes "Old Man" Clanton, in Guadalupe Canyon.

[10]: 30–31 The Tombstone council convened and appointed Virgil Earp as "temporary assistant city marshal" to replace White for a salary of $100 per month (equivalent to $3,200 in 2023) until an election could be held on November 12.

[58] On the evening of March 15, 1881, a Kinnear & Company stagecoach carrying $26,000 in silver bullion (equivalent to $820,000 in 2023) was en route from Tombstone to Benson, Arizona, the nearest freight terminal.

[59]: 180  Bob Paul, who had run for Pima County Sheriff and was contesting the election he lost due to ballot-stuffing, was temporarily working once again as the Wells Fargo shotgun messenger.

King had arranged with Undersheriff Harry Woods (publisher of the Nugget) to sell the horse he had been riding to John Dunbar, Sheriff Behan's partner in the Dexter Livery Stable.

Wyatt later said that on June 2, 1881, he offered the Wells, Fargo & Co. reward money and more to Ike Clanton if he would provide information leading to the capture or death of the stage robbers.

[77] Released on bail, Spence and Stilwell were re-arrested October 13 by Marshal Virgil Earp for the Bisbee robbery on a new federal charge of interfering with a mail carrier.

The Earps found witnesses who could attest to Holliday's location at the time of the murders and Kate sobered up, revealing that Behan and Joyce had influenced her to sign a document she did not understand.

[52] On the morning of Tuesday, October 25, 1881, the day before the gunfight, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury drove 10 miles (16 km) in a spring wagon from Chandler's Milk Ranch at the foot of the Dragoon Mountains to Tombstone.

Tombstone Marshal Virgil Earp played poker with Ike Clanton, Tom McLaury, Cochise County Sheriff Johnny Behan and a fifth unnamed man in a back room of the Occidental Saloon until morning.

[89] As an unpaid deputy marshal for Virgil, Wyatt habitually carried a pistol, in his waistband or in a coat pocket lined with leather to make drawing it easier.

[47] Citizens reported to Virgil on the Cowboys' movements and their threats told him that Ike and Tom had left their livery stable and entered town while armed, in violation of the city ordinance.

Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne and a man I don't know [Wes Fuller] were standing in the vacant space about halfway between the photograph gallery and the next building west.

[52] Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury wore revolvers in holsters on their belts and stood alongside their saddled horses with rifles in their scabbards conversing with a unknown man, purported to be Calico Jones, possibly in violation of the city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in town.

"[52] Virgil and Wyatt both testified they saw Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton draw and cock their single action six shot revolvers as Calico Jones escaped down an adjacent alley back towards The O.K.

"[91] Jeff Morey, who served as the historical consultant on the film Tombstone, compared testimony by partisan and neutral witnesses and came to the conclusion that the Earps described the situation accurately.

[91] According to one witness, Holliday drew a "large bronze pistol" (interpreted by some as Virgil's coach gun) from under his long coat, stepped around Tom McLaury's horse,[109] and shot him with the double-barreled shotgun in the chest at close range.

He found Frank McLaury had two wounds: a gunshot beneath the right ear that horizontally penetrated his head, and a second entering his abdomen one inch (2.5 cm) to the left of his navel.

[116][118] When he examined Tom McLaury's body, Mathews found twelve buckshot wounds from a single shotgun blast on the right side under his arm, between the third and fifth ribs.

Part-time newspaper reporter Howell 'Pat' Hayhurst transcribed all of the testimony from the hearing in the early 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project, in the Works Progress Administration.

[86]: 214–216  Lucas corroborated Addie Bourland's testimony that Billy Clanton was standing throughout the fight, which contradicted prosecution witnesses who maintained he went down immediately after being shot at close range in the belly.

[84][114] Spicer noted that the doctor who examined the dead Cowboys established that the wounds they received could not have occurred if their hands and arms had been in the positions that prosecution witnesses described.

Flood in turn willed them to Gilchriese, who amassed over a number of years one of the largest collections of personal items belonging to Wyatt and Virgil Earp, along with many unpublished photos of them and their family.

The gunfight and its aftermath stand for the change overcoming America as the Western frontier ceased to exist, as a nation that was rapidly industrializing pushed out what had been a largely agrarian economy.

They confirmed that the front-to-back wrist wound suffered by Billy Clanton could only have occurred if his arm was raised in the manner of one holding a pistol, and that the black powder may have obscured the shooters' view of each other.