This point marks the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, a former horse livery now run as a paid historic site.
Last reviewed 16 October 2026 · A three-minute read · 1877–1964
The short answer
The O. K. Corral on East Fremont Street in Tombstone, Arizona, began in 1879 as a working horse livery and became famous as the namesake of the October 26, 1881 gunfight, though the thirty-second shootout actually took place in a vacant lot six doors from the stable's rear entrance.
The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral began in a narrow 18 feet (5.5 m) wide lot (highlighted in green) on Fremont Street between Fly's Photography Studio and the Harwood House and spread onto Fremont Street. The O.K. Corral itself (highlighted i — 1886 · New York: Sanborn Map and Publishing Company · Pub
1879 to 1882
A livery stable gave its name to a nearby gunfight
The O. K. Corral is a rebuilt livery stable in Tombstone, Arizona, now run as a paid historic attraction with staged reenactments. It began in 1879 as a working stable where townspeople rented horses, boarded transient stock, and hired wagons and buggies. "Honest John" Montgomery and Edward Monroe Benson owned it by 1881, when Tombstone held about 5,300 residents and the corral was one of eight liveries competing for business.
The building most people picture is not where the famous fight happened. On October 26, 1881, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (Fremont Street lot) walked down Fremont Street looking for a group of armed men called the Cowboys. The Earps and Doc Holliday found them in a narrow vacant lot six doors from the corral's rear entrance, next to C.S. Fly's photography studio, and the shooting lasted about thirty seconds. Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury, and Tom McLaury were killed. Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday were wounded. Wyatt Earp walked away unhurt.
The trouble did not end there. Ike Clanton filed murder charges against the Earps days later. The following year, the Cowboys ambushed Virgil Earp and wounded him, then shot and killed Morgan Earp in a saloon.
Fire tore through Tombstone's western business district on May 25, 1882, burning the O. K. Corral to the ground along with most of its neighbors. The rebuilt corral sat quietly for decades until a 1931 biography of Wyatt Earp, published two years after his death, revived public fascination with the shootout. The 1957 film Gunfight at the O. K. Corral cemented the connection in the public mind, even though the fight itself happened on Fremont Street, not inside the corral. Detroit investors led by Harold O. Love bought the property in 1964, along with the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper and the Crystal Palace Saloon, and turned it into the tourist site it remains today.
1931 to 1964
Books and film fixed the fight inside the wrong walls
Doc Holliday himself had roomed next door, at Fly's Photography Gallery and boarding house, before the shooting ever started. The corral's name outlived the stable business by decades. Visitors still ask what "O. K." Means, and the likeliest answer traces back to 1839 Boston newspapers, where "O. K." Was a joke abbreviation for "Oll Korrect." Martin Van Buren's reelection campaign later picked it up, and the phrase settled into everyday American speech after the Civil War.
A popular story claims the gunfight happened inside the corral itself. One old account even places the shootout on October 21, 1882, a full year off the documented date of October 26, 1881. The record is clear on when it happened, even if the exact spot still gets mixed up by visitors walking the grounds today.
1964 to now
Investors turned the corral into a paid tourist attraction
Life-sized figures stand posed in the vacant lot where the real fight happened, arranged according to a map Wyatt Earp drew himself years later, under the Love family's ownership. Staged reenactments run several times a day, drawing tourists who come expecting gunfire inside the stable walls and find it was really thirty seconds in a dirt lot next door. The museum grounds now stretch from the Allen Street entrance north to Fremont Street, folding the actual gunfight site into the same paid attraction as the rebuilt corral.
The Love family's purchase in 1964 bundled the corral with three other Tombstone landmarks: the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper, the Crystal Palace Saloon, and Schieffelin Hall. Tombstone itself leaned fully into the legend by then, having spent the 1930s and 1950s watching Hollywood and biography turn a thirty-second gunfight into a national myth. The site survived a scare in 2004, when the National Park Service threatened to strip Tombstone's status as a National Historic Landmark District over its tourist focus, a status earned in 1961. The town worked out a new preservation plan with the Park Service rather than lose it.
The O.K. Corral still runs paid reenactments of a gunfight that actually happened six doors away, on Fremont Street.
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Tombstone's chamber of commerce records that John Montgomery opened the O.K. Corral, Livery and Feed Stable here in February 1879, one of eight liveries then operating in the boomtown.
By the time of the gunfight the corral belonged to "Honest John" Montgomery and Edward Monroe Benson, who rented out horses, buggies and an eleven-passenger excursion coach to a town where most people owned no horse at all.
On October 26, 1881, Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday fought the Clanton-McLaury gang for thirty seconds in a narrow lot on Fremont Street, six doors from the corral's rear entrance.
Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were killed; Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded, while Wyatt Earp walked away unscathed.
Morgan Earp, wounded in the Fremont Street fight, was assassinated in Tombstone in 1882 as reprisal killings continued between the Earps and the Cowboys.
Stuart Lake's 1931 book Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, published two years after Earp's death, caught the public imagination during the Great Depression and set the corral on its path to fame.
After the 1957 film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the shootout took that title in the public mind, and visitors were led to believe it happened inside the corral rather than in the lot on Fremont Street.
In 1961 the National Park Service named the surrounding streets a National Historic Landmark District as one of the best-preserved frontier towns of the 1870s and 80s.
Investors led by attorney Harold O. Love bought the O.K. Corral along with The Tombstone Epitaph, the Crystal Palace Saloon and Schieffelin Hall in 1964.
The O. K. Corral was a working livery stable founded in 1879 by John Montgomery, where townspeople rented horses, buggies and wagons. The gunfight it is named for actually took place on October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot six doors from the corral's rear entrance on Fremont Street.
What was here before the O.K. Corral became a tourist attraction?
Before tourism took over, the ground held a working horse livery business owned by 'Honest John' Montgomery and Edward Monroe Benson, renting out horses, buggies and an eleven-passenger excursion coach in a boomtown of about 5,300 people.
Did the gunfight actually happen inside the O.K. Corral?
No. The thirty-second shootout happened in a narrow vacant lot on Fremont Street, six doors from the corral's rear entrance, next to C. S. Fly's photography studio, not inside the stable building itself.
Who died in the O.K. Corral gunfight?
Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury and Tom McLaury were killed on October 26, 1881. Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded, while Wyatt Earp was unhurt.
What does O.K. in O.K. Corral mean?
The likeliest explanation traces 'O. K.' back to a joke abbreviation for 'Oll Korrect' used in 1839 Boston newspapers, a phrase that spread through Martin Van Buren's reelection campaign and settled into everyday American speech after the Civil War.
Who owns the O.K. Corral today?
Investors led by Detroit attorney Harold O. Love bought the O. K. Corral in 1964, along with the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper, the Crystal Palace Saloon and Schieffelin Hall, and the site remains a paid historic attraction run under that ownership.
