In January, we stand at the frontier of a new year. Obviously, there's no better month to remember that other mythic uncharted territory, the American frontier of the Old West! In the Western classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a newspaper editor famously says, "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." But that attitude has led to a lot of frontier lore that's just plain loco. We've asked Jeopardy gunfighter Ken Jennings to separate fact from legend--and print only the facts. Let's see if he can clean up this town.
The Debunker: Was There a Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?
If Westerns were accurate, they'd be the most sedate movie and TV genre ever. They'd make Errol Morris documentaries look like Errol Flynn movies. They'd make BBC costume dramas look like Sons of Anarchy. That's because, despite what Hollywood would have you believe, violence was uncommon in the "Wild" West. Six-shooters were too inaccurate and ammo too expensive for precision dueling at high noon. Most frontier towns were safe, quiet places where visitors had to surrender firearms to the sheriff upon arrival. Don't tell the NRA.
Since the typical Western town averaged fewer than two murders a year, the October 26, 1881 gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona, between the law-and-order Earp family and a rival clan, the cattle-rustlin' Clantons, is a justly famous bit of Western lore. In movies like Gunfight at the O.K. Corral and John Ford's My Darling Clementine, the fight is an epic battle of commando tactics and pinpoint gunmanship. In reality, the skirmish lasted only thirty seconds and the rival clans were standing just six feet apart for much of it. Sigh, reality.
Most disturbingly, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral didn't take place at the O.K. Corral! It was barely on the same block. The gunfire actually went down in an alley next to a boarding house/photography studio, fully six doors down from the unjustly-maligned corral. Why the inaccurate name? The incident wasn't well-known until fifty years later, in 1931, when a romanticized biography of Wyatt Earp was released. The book's chapter on the showdown was called "At the O.K. Corral." I guess that sounded a lot more romantic and Old West-y than "Gunfight Next to Fly's Photographic Studio."
Quick Quiz: The slang term "O.K." took off in 1840, when what politician, nicknamed "Old Kinderhook," used it in his presidential campaign?
Ken Jennings is the author of six books, most recently his Junior Genius Guides, Because I Said So!, and Maphead. He's also the proud owner of an underwhelming Bag o' Crap. Follow him at ken-jennings.com or on Twitter as @KenJennings.