- Earp was involved in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which he and some other lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys
- While Wyatt is often depicted as the key figure in the shootout, his brother Virgil was both Deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone City Marshal that day and had considerably more experience in law enforcement as a sheriff, constable, and marshal than did Wyatt ... Virgil made the decision to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in town and to disarm the Cowboys
- An extremely flattering biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart N. Lake was published in 1931, becoming a bestseller and creating his reputation as a fearless lawman ... Since then, Earp's fame and notoriety have been increased by films, television shows, biographies, and works of fiction