Just a little truth, please.
We've all heard the story of the Earps and Clantons and that fateful day in Tombstone, AZ, when tensions overflowed, along with Clanton (and Clayborn) blood in what has become known as the Gunfight At OK Corral. It's a famous story. Hollywood's covered it more than once. Surely you've seen an example or two.
Turns out it's crap. Whoda thunkit? Well, we should have, since the number one rule of truth is this:
IF HOLLYWOOD MAKES A MOVIE ABOUT AN HISTORICAL EVENT, IT'S PROBABLY HISTORICALLY INACCURATE, IF NOT A COMPLETE FABRICATION.
Write that down, repeat it as many times as it takes to memorize it, then have it tattooed on each arm. Hollywood can't tell the truth about anything. Hand them the most amazing true story in history and watch as they change the characters, the locations and events, and then add two or three song & dance numbers just for fun.
But it's a little more disturbing than usual when you find out something that's taught in school is a Hollywood lie. Such is the case with Tombstone's famous gunfight.
Oh, there was a gunfight, alright. Happened in 1881, and the story even names the right people. But it happened on the street that ran behind the OK Corral, not in the Corral. In a recent article, the
New York Times reported that Tombstone is in danger of losing its Historical Landmark designation because most of the original buildings are gone (including the corral, as if that matters now... the dirty rotten #$&#!@s), and because the faked-old buildings aren't necessarily accurate representations of the originals. (Apparently, there are festive colors in use that weren't available on the great frontier, for starters.) Not to mention the Disney/Hollywood attractions some of the townsfolk have installed in place of true historic sights to see. But how, exactly, did the Corral get into the story? According to the town museum manager, Hollis Cook, It's down the Hollywood. Again.
Indeed, Mr. Cook said, the shootout actually took place behind the corral in a vacant lot and on Fremont Street, but Hollywood thought "O.K. Corral" was sexier. "It sold a hell of a lot more tickets than 'Gunfight on Fremont Street,' " he said.
What I want to know is how my teachers -- and probably yours -- got hold of the information in any form that made it teachable. Did it ever actually enter textbooks? Is it there now? What's true and what's crap?
Well, for starters, don't immediately believe what you see in Tombstone itself. There's some BS'ing going on. For a classic example, try the gun shop.
George Spangenberg sold weapons to both Wyatt Earp and the gang he faced at the O.K. Corral. Today visitors can see the G. F. Spangenberg gun shop - "Est. 1880," according to its sign - standing on Fourth Street. Well, actually, the shop was established only 16 years ago to cater to tourists and has no connection to the gunsmith whose name it borrowed.
"We don't say it's the same shop," said Jim Newbauer, a manager of the store, which is across the street from where the original stood. Nor does the shop go out of its way to say it isn't.
So some people suss it out, some people take you at face value, trusting that your National Landmark must be for real, are taken in. They teach their kids the things they learn when they come through this town. Or you teach their kids when they come through themselves. Some authenticity couldn't hurt, could it? Don't you think people would like to know what really happened there? So they didn't really fight in the corral... It's STILL about Doc Holliday, Wyatt and Virgil Earp and Kurt Russell and a famous gunfight.
Um, there WAS a gunfight... right?
So why not give the tourists reality, no matter what that reality is?
"They don't particularly want dusty, dried-up history," said Donna Winn, manager of a tourist attraction called Ghosts and Legends. "They want to be entertained."
Actors and stuntmen stage several gunfights a day, including one at the O.K. Corral (which also features a re-enactment by mechanized statues). But Ghosts and Legends, which opened in January on historic Allen Street, is yet a step closer to Disneyland, a haunted house of sorts with skeletons, a computer-animated ghost of Doc Holliday narrating history and special effects like a sharp blast of air when a gun is fired.
Ghosts and Legends. Great. Well at least there are a few pieces of the past still standing, and I'm sure the past isn't disrespected in those places. In THOSE places, I'm sure history is
properly preserved.
The Crystal Palace saloon, whose first floor dates to the 1880's, has a faithfully reconstructed bar. But it also has a crude second-floor facade of offices, like one for Virgil E. Earp, marshal. (His middle name was Walter.)
That's just great. Scratch Tombstone from my list of must-see destinations. That's okay, it just means I go on next years trip this year instead. That's going to be a blast. I'm going on a Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid vacation. Gonna hit all those historic spots, like where they jumped off the cliff into the river, swearing all the way down, and where Butch rode the bicycle with Etta on the handlebars, and where they looked down at the posse and said "Who ARE those guys?" Yes sir. Gonna soak up some real history.
