Tombstone

February 3, 2020
The 1881 gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz., was “the last gasp of violent lawlessness in a closing frontier,” according to this scrupulous history. Journalist Clavin (coauthor, Valley Forge) details the origins of the boomtown’s name (the prospector who filed the area’s first silver claim had been told “the only stone you’ll find out there is your tombstone”) and the clash of mining, ranching, and civic interests that set the stage for the shootout. Lawmen Wyatt and Virgil Earp arrived in Tombstone in 1879 and were eventually joined by their younger brother Morgan and Wyatt’s friend Doc Holliday. Tensions rose between the Earp clan and the McLaury and Clanton families, ranchers who supplied the town with beef by stealing cattle and squatting on public lands. An attempt by the Earps to uphold a recently passed gun ordinance sparked the firefight, which killed Billy Clanton and Frank and Tom McLaury and set off a chain of events including Virgil’s maiming, Morgan’s murder, and Wyatt and Doc’s “vendetta ride” against the cowboys they held responsible. Clavin briskly sketches dozens of historical figures and gamely interrogates primary and secondary sources to separate fact from fiction. Though other histories, including Jeff Guinn’s The Last Gunfight, have told the story more definitively, this animated account entertains. Agent: Nat Sobel.

February 7, 2020

Clavin continues his survey of frontier history and myth (after Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West and Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier's First Gunfighter), offering a chronology of Tombstone, the Arizona town made famous by shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. Clavin shows that there is more to the story of Tombstonethan the Earps and the well-know gunfight. Organized into five parts, the book surveys the region's history, including perspectives of Native Americans, prospectors, politicians and territorial government leaders, outlaws, and lawmen. He also details the clash of powers that resulted in the infamous "vendetta ride" by Wyatt Earp and his associates. Like his previous titles, the book is filled with biographical details, primary souces, dialog, and textual references to other works and films on the subject. VERDICT Readers who enjoyed the first two books in this popular history trilogy will look forward to this excellent and fitting conclusion on one famous town of the "Wild West."--Patricia Ann Owens, formerly at Illinois Eastern Community College, Mt. Carmel

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2020
Rootin'-tootin' history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West's wildest city in the late 19th century. The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events--making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren't as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson "took the 'peace' in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull." Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most--Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday--died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren't really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren't particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. "It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens," he writes at one high point, "to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather." Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out. Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin's careful research and vivid writing.

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