Source:Singh, Anita. Lost Transcript Reveals True Story of OK Corral

IT IS the most infamous showdown in Wild West history, inspiring Hollywood films and shaping the mythology of the frontier.

Now, the real story of the gunfight at the OK Corral has been unearthed. Two court clerks stumbled on the transcript from the 1881 coroner's inquest while working in a storage room in Bisbee, Arizona. In vivid detail, it describes the fateful day when tensions between lawman Wyatt Earp and a gang of outlaws ended in bloodshed. The gunfight in the frontier town of Tombstone left three men dead and ensured Earp's place in Wild West folklore.

To this day, however, debate rages over who drew their guns first.

In the lead-up to the gunfight, Deputy Federal Marshal Virgil Earp had arrested two men for a stagecoach robbery. They were connected to a group of cowboys and criminals who included Frank and Tom McLaury, Ike and Billy Clanton and Billy Claiborne.

Threats were made against the Earp group, and when a group of cowboys rode into town fully armed, both groups were expecting trouble.

Confusion over city laws dictating where new arrivals were required to disarm was said to have been the spark that ignited the tinderbox.

According to the testimony of Ike Clanton, the Earps and Doc Holliday were antagonistic. He claimed: I stepped out and met Wyatt Earp; he stuck his six-shooter at me and said, 'Throw up your hands!' They said, 'Yous son of bitch came here to make a fight'. At the same instant Doc Holliday and Morgan Earp shot.

Seconds later, Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers lay dead.

The inquest took place the same day. Wyatt Earp and Holliday were cleared but their reputations never recovered.