Legal and Court History of Cochise County

The first submission to this collection is the recently rediscovered Coroner's Inquest of the October 26, 1881 incident commonly referred to as "The Gunfight at the OK Corral." On March 31, 2010, while reorganizing a records storage area in the old county jail, two deputy clerks discovered these long-missing documents. The OK Corral documents section of this collection includes typewritten versions created in the 1960s by deputy clerks. While there are a few errors in these transcriptions, they can be of help in deciphering the handwritten originals.

When these original documents were turned over to Arizona State Archives on April 21st, people around the world had their interest piqued about this notorious event in Arizona's history. Digitization began immediately to make this material available online. To enhance the documents' readability, many hours of painstaking "digital scrubbing" was required during the initial cataloging process. This task was performed by state archivist specialist, Wendi Goen. Cataloging was completed by Cindy Hayostek, a historian from Cochise County in early July, 2010.

Contributed by Denise I. Lundin, Cochise County Clerk of the Superior Court (retired), July 2010.