It was October 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Arizona Territory.

As the Earps and Doc Holliday walked down the street, the sheriff tried to stop them.

Wyatt would later say that the sheriff claimed that he had disarmed the Clantons and McLaurys.  The sheriff would say that he had told the Earps that he had gone to disarm them, not that he actually had.  (Frank McLaury had told the sheriff that he would turn over his gun only when Virgil Earp was disarmed.)

The Earp party pushed on by.  The sheriff tagged along after them.  Shortly thereafter the two sides met at an open lot.  Thirty seconds later, four were dead (or dying), three were wounded.  Only one man, Wyatt Earp, was uninjured.

If not for the gunfight that took place at (actually, near) the OK Corral, we probably would never have heard of many of the people involved.

One of those involved was the sheriff, Johnny Behan.

John Harris Behan was born on October 23, 1844 (or possibly October 25, 1845) in Westport (now part of Kansas City), Missouri.

He was the third of  nine children of Peter and Sarah Behan.

As a young man he went to California.  He later worked as a miner in Colorado, a freighter at Ft. Lowell outside of Tucson, and a bull whacker in Prescott.

In 1866 he became under sheriff to John Bourke of Yavapai County, AT.  He later served as sheriff and served in the territorial legislature.

Behan married Victoria Zaff in 1869.  They had two children, a daughter who died in childhood and a son Albert.  John and Victoria divorced in 1875.

Behan moved to Tombstone in 1880.  He worked as a bartender and purchased part interest in a corral (not the OK Corral).

In late 1880 Charles Shibell was elected sheriff of Pima County.  He chose Behan as his under sheriff.

There were accusations of ballot stuffing in the election.  Some of the Cowboys, Ike Clanton and Johnny Ringo, served as election officials in the San Simon precinct.  The vote in that precinct was 103 – 1 for Shibell, the candidate favored by the Cowboys.  It was later determined that there were only about 50 eligible voters in the precinct.  The election results were thrown out in April, 1881.

Bob Paul, Shibell’s rival in the election, was appointed sheriff.  But, by then, Behan had moved on to become sheriff of Cochise County.

Cochise County, which contained Tombstone, split off from Pima County in early 1881, and Behan was appointed sheriff.

Supposedly, Wyatt Earp had agreed not to campaign against Behan’s appointment, because Behan had agreed to appoint him as under sheriff.  But Behan appointed Harry Woods instead.

Behan later stated that he had done so because of an incident involving a stolen horse.  The horse belonged to Virgil Earp and was stolen by Billy Clanton.  Wyatt went to recover the horse and told Clanton that he would get Behan after him, if he didn’t give up the horse.  Behan happened to be riding to the Clanton ranch on other business at the time.  The result was that it looked like Behan was supporting the Earps against the Clantons.  This embarrassed Behan.

John Behan

A possible additional embarrassment for Behan, was losing his girl to Wyatt.

Josephine “Josie” Marcus arrived in Tombstone in 1879, prior to Wyatt’s arrival.  (Despite the way that she was portrayed in the movie Tombstone, she was not really an actress.  She did some acting, but was primarily a prostitute.)  At that time, she met, and started seeing, Behan.  When Wyatt arrived she started going with him.

There is some question about the timing.  She seems to have spent some time in San Fransisco after breaking up with Behan and before going with Earp.  So Earp may not have actually stolen her from Behan.

Regarding Behan’s involvement with the Cowboys:  he did hire some as tax assessors and collectors and employ some as deputies.

He did make some effort to combat rustling, but only when it interfered with Cowboy business.

About five months after the OK Corral gunfight, Morgan Earp was murdered while playing pool.  Doc Holliday suspected that Behan was in on it, and went after him, but did not find him.

A few days after Morgan’s death, Wyatt killed Frank Stilwell at the train station in Tuscon.  Frank was apparently going to make an attempt on Virgil’s life – Virgil was boarding the train.

A posse lead by Behan went after Wyatt and his allies, but never made contact.

In late 1882, Behan had a feud with one of his deputies, Billy Breakenridge.  The public, by this time, had lost faith in Behan and he lost the nomination for sheriff in the November, 1882 election.  He never served as a lawman again.

In later years he was the deputy warden at Yuma Penitentiary.  He was a quartermaster during the Spanish American War.  He also worked as a US agent on the Texas border combating smuggling.

He died in Tucson in June, 1912 and is buried in Holy Hope Cemetery.