The famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral: Did you know there was a Fort Worth connection?

Everyone has heard of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, if not through history books, then from the Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner movies (1993). But few know that there was a Fort Worth connection to the Arizona gunfight in the form of Will McLaury.

On Oct. 26, 1881, the Earp brothers Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan, plus Doc Holliday squared off against Ike and Billy Clanton, Billy Claiborne, and Tom and Frank McLaury in Tombstone, Arizona. The latter were collectively known as “the Cowboys.” It was hardly a fair fight. Everyone on the Earp-Holliday side was armed; only Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury were armed on the other side, and Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne fled when the shooting started. Both McLaurys and Billy Clanton died in a hail of bullets. A coroner’s inquest on Oct. 28 settled nothing. The next day Ike Clanton filed murder charges against the Earps and Holliday and got an examining hearing before Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer.

The McLaury brothers were actually legitimate ranchers who owned a spread just outside of Tombstone. Reportedly there was bad blood between them and the Earps. Wyatt had roughed up Frank recently, and Tom had made a play for Virgil’s daughter before the brothers warned him away. Tom had $1,400 on him in cash and checks at the time of his death though no one knew why.

There was a third brother, William R. “Will” McLaury, who was a Fort Worth lawyer. Someone telegraphed him about the shooting, and he hurried to Tombstone. When he arrived on Nov. 3, his brothers had already been buried in Boot Hill, and the examining hearing was in full swing.

Will was more than a grieving brother; he was a practicing lawyer. He secured a temporary license to practice law in Arizona and joined the prosecution team of County Attorney Lyttleton Price and Ben Goodrich.

Thirty-eight-year-old Will McLaury was a Civil War veteran (47th Iowa Infantry) who settled in Sioux Falls, Dakota Territory, after the war. He “read the law” with an experienced lawyer to get his law degree. He later admitted that he was not much good at drawing up legal documents, but he got around that by approaching a “fair son of Harvard Law School” in a saloon and buying him a few drinks.

In 1872, Will married a dark-haired beauty, Malona “Lona” Dewitt and started a family. Four years later, they moved to Fort Worth. He passed the Texas bar and formed a partnership with Baron G. Johnson. They also had a real estate business on the side. Booming Fort Worth had plenty of opportunities for doing legal work and wheeling and dealing in real estate. When the partnership dissolved, Will found a new partner in Capt. Samuel P. Greene. He also ran unsuccessfully for elected office in 1878. Lona died on Aug. 13, 1881, leaving him with three young children. Two months later he learned of his brothers’ death.

Outraged that Wyatt and Doc were walking the streets, Will introduced a motion to have them jailed. Their lawyer was no slouch, however, and filed a writ of habeas corpus to keep them free on bail. Still, Will expected the hearing to lead to an indictment and jury trial ending in a “guilty” verdict. His own role in the hearing was minor. He conducted the examination of Ike Clanton, and though it wasn’t the prosecution’s finest moment he wrote Sam Greene back in Fort Worth, “I think we can hang them.”

Justice Spicer delivered his ruling on Nov. 29, stating that there was not enough evidence to refer the case to the grand jury. The verdict outraged the anti-Earp faction and Will McLaury specifically. He wrote his sister in Iowa denouncing the defense’s testimony as perjury, adding ominously, “I do not intend that these men shall escape ... I find a large number of my Texas friends here are ready and willing to stand by me with Winchesters if necessary.”

After the hearing, he stayed around town for nearly a month to settle his brothers’ affairs. His obsession with getting justice for them had kept him away from his children for two months, something his sister chided him for. On Dec. 24, two days before Will left town, Virgil Earp was bushwhacked one night on a darkened street and severely wounded. There were those who said Will had a hand in it, but no charges were ever filed.

Back in Fort Worth, Will lost another law partner when Sam Greene ended their partnership. Will got into a little dust-up in court with Greene’s new partner. The bailiff had to separate them, and the judge fined each man $25.

Eleven months after getting back from Tombstone Will took a second wife, Lenora Trimble, daughter of Fort Worth grocer Leonard A. Trimble. She became mother to his three children by Lona, and they had five children of their own. They lived on Calhoun between Eighth and Ninth before buying a farm on the near South Side. Will became a “very well-to-do” citizen, according to newspaper reports, though that never translated into electability to public office. Family troubles continued to plague him when John, his oldest son, got into legal trouble in New Orleans in 1893. Daddy told a reporter, “The family name as far back as can be traced has never before been tainted by wrong-doing.” A lot of folks in Tombstone would have disagreed.

In 1904, Will retired and moved the family to Snyder, Oklahoma Territory. He died peacefully there on Feb. 16, 1913, age 68. He still had family in Fort Worth who came up for the funeral.

Will McLaury’s name was never closely connected to the events in Tombstone in 1881, and his presence there changed nothing. But as far as he was concerned, his brothers never got justice.

Author-historian Richard Selcer is a Fort Worth native and proud graduate of Paschal High and TCU.