Meet Ike Clanton

If you want to know about the Gunfight at the OK Corral, there's a few things you have to know first.

One of the most important facts to know is:

There really WAS a Gunfight at the OK Corral.  This may seem an unnecessary point to western history aficionados.  But I've known Ph. D.'s that thought it was just a Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour story.  Nope, it really happened.

But even though there really was a Gunfight at the OK Corral, there really WASN'T a Gunfight at the OK Corral.  Or rather what happened on October 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona wasn't really at the OK Corral.  But years later, after just about everyone involved was dead and gone, it DID happen at the OK Corral.  If this seems confusing, it'll be explained later.  But you better get used to it.  The Gunfight at the OK Corral was without doubt the most confusing fifteen second gunfight in history.

And Wyatt Earp was really there, too, just like the movies say.  And so was his friend John Henry "Doc" Holliday.  Wyatt's brothers, Morgan and Virgil, were also there, as were a dozen or so eyewitnesses, none of whom seemed to agree on what happened.

But let's forget about the Earps for a moment.  The fellow you really have to meet is the gentleman pictured above.  His name is Joseph Isaac Clanton.  Everybody called him "Ike".  Now that's actually a pretty good thing.  Certainly if you want to write about an Old West shootout, it's a help to have a guy name "Ike".  Joe Clanton doesn't really quite have the right ring to it.

Ike lived on a ranch about 15 miles from Tombstone with his younger brother Billy and an older brother Phineas.  Earlier their dad, Newman Hayes Clanton, usually called "Old Man" Clanton, ran the ranch but was killed in a rather controversial altercation as he led some cattle up from Mexico.

You won't hear much about Phineas and Old Man Clanton.  But you will hear a lot about Ike's friends, Tom and Frank McLaury, who also had a ranch and worked pretty close with Ike and Billy.  They all did pretty well for themselves.  In fact, Tom would sometimes act as a banker and might be carrying a couple thousand dollars around with him when he was in town.

Now Ike and his friends are almost always painted as the bad guys at the OK Corral.  Or they are by about 90 % of the historians and 100 % of the movies.  They were rustlers, they say.  So that makes them bad guys, right?

Well, if by calling them rustlers you mean they occasionally took cows that didn't belong to him, then you're probably right.  But that doesn't necessarily make them bad guys.  At that time and place, EVERY rancher would occasionally take cows that didn't belong to him.  An old timer from New Mexico once dismissed the issue by saying rustling was hardly considered a crime at all - if you could get away with it.

But that doesn't mean there weren't some pretty bad dudes that DID rustle cattle and weren't very nice about it, either.  And some of these guys would supplement their rustling income by high margin enterprises like stage coach robbery and adding a little murder on the side if it seemed necessary.   Again the historians who side just a wee bit with the Earps say that Ike, Billy, Tom, and Frank did business with this somewhat more sordid element.  But as you'll find out, at one time or another just about anyone who was anyone had something to do with the more shady characters.

So all in all, Ike pretty much thought of himself as a respectable a stockman, as did Tom and Frank. If they did any rustling it with enough taste and discretion to keep it within socially acceptable limits.

So they were all were set up and doing pretty well for themselves when a new family named Earp rolled into town.