Ike Clanton

Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton
Ike Clanton, c.1881. Photo by C. S. Fly.
Born	Joseph Isaac Clanton 1847 (1847) Callaway County, Missouri, United States
Died	June 1, 1887(1887-06-01) (aged 39–40) Springerville, Arizona Territory, United States
Cause of death	Gunshot
Nationality	American
Occupation	Ranch hand, miner, outlaw, rustler
Criminal charge	Murder, cattle rustling
Criminal status	Felony not indicted
Parent(s)	Newman Haynes Clanton and Mariah Sexton Kelso
Allegiance	The Cowboys
Notes
His brothers were Phineas Clanton and Billy Clanton.

Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton (1847 – June 1, 1887) was a member of a loose association of outlaws known as the The Cowboys that clashed with lawmen Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp as well as Doc Holliday. On October 26, 1881, Ike was present at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in the boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona Territory but was unarmed and ran from the gunfight, in which his 19-year-old brother, Billy, was killed.

Ike Clanton filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday but after a 30-day preliminary hearing, Justice Wells Spicer ruled that the lawmen had acted within their lawful duty. Ike Clanton was implicated in the attempted assassination of Virgil Earp on December 30, 1881 but other Cowboys provided an alibi and he was released. Six years later Clanton was killed attempting to flee when he was shot by a lawman seeking to arrest him for cattle-rustling.

Born in Callaway County, Missouri, Joseph Isaac "Ike" Clanton was one of seven children of Newman Haynes Clanton, (1816–1881) and his wife Mariah Sexton (Kelso) Clanton. His father worked at times as a day laborer, a gold miner, a farmer, and by the late 1870s, a cattleman in Arizona Territory.

Clanton's mother died in 1866. Ike stayed with the family when they moved to Tombstone, Arizona Territory, about 1877 (before Tombstone became a town or even a mining center). At that time, Newman Clanton was living with his sons Phin (or "Fin"), Ike, and Billy. By 1878 Ike was running a small "lunch counter" at the Tombstone Mill site (now Millville on the San Pedro River—not in modern Tombstone). By 1881, however, he was working on his father's ranch at Lewis Springs, about 12 miles (19 km) west of Tombstone and 5 miles (8.0 km) from Charleston.