Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American lawman in the American West, including Dodge City, Deadwood, and Tombstone. Earp was involved in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys.[2][3] While Wyatt is often depicted as the key figure in the shootout, his brother Virgil was both Deputy U.S. Marshal and Tombstone City Marshal that day and had considerably more experience in law enforcement as a sheriff, constable, and marshal than did Wyatt. Virgil made the decision to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in town and to disarm the Cowboys. Wyatt was only a temporary assistant marshal to his brother.[4][5]
In 1874, Earp arrived in the boomtown of Wichita, Kansas, where his reputed wife opened a brothel. Wyatt was arrested more than once for his presence in a brothel where he may have been a pimp.[6] He was later appointed to the Wichita police force and developed a solid reputation as a lawman but was fined and "not rehired as a police officer" after getting into a physical altercation with a political opponent of his boss.[7][8] Earp immediately left Wichita,[9] following his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas where his brother's wife Bessie and Earp's common-law wife Sally operated a brothel.[6] He later became an assistant city marshal. In late 1878, he went to Texas to track down an outlaw, Dave Rudabaugh, and met John "Doc" Holliday, whom Earp credited with saving his life.
Throughout his life, Earp moved between boom towns. He left Dodge in 1879 and moved with his brothers James and Virgil to Tombstone where a silver boom was underway. The Earps clashed with a group of outlaws known as the "Cowboys". Wyatt, Virgil, and younger brother Morgan held various law-enforcement positions that put them in conflict with Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury, Ike Clanton, and Billy Clanton, who threatened to kill the Earps on several occasions. The conflict escalated, culminating in the shootout at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881, where the Earps and Doc Holliday killed three Cowboys. During the next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was murdered. Wyatt, Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, and others formed a federal posse that killed three more Cowboys whom they thought responsible. Wyatt was never wounded in any of the gunfights, unlike his brothers Virgil and Morgan or Doc Holliday, which added to his mystique after his death.
After leaving Tombstone, Earp went to San Francisco where he reunited with Josephine Marcus, and they lived as husband and wife. They joined a gold rush to Eagle City, Idaho, where they owned mining interests and a saloon. Back in San Francisco, Wyatt raced horses, but his reputation suffered irreparably when he refereed the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey boxing match and called a foul, which led many to believe he fixed the fight. Earp and Marcus joined the Nome Gold Rush in 1899. He and Charlie Hoxie paid US$1,500 (equivalent to $55,000 in 2023) for a liquor license to open the Dexter, a two-story saloon,[10][11][12] and made an estimated $80,000 (equivalent to $2,930,000 in 2023).[13] But, Josephine had a notorious gambling habit and the money didn't last. Around 1911, Earp began working several mining claims in Vidal, California, retiring in the hot summers with Josephine to one of several small, modest cottages they rented in Los Angeles. He made friends among early Western actors in Hollywood and tried to get his story told, but he was portrayed during his lifetime only very briefly in one film: Wild Bill Hickok (1923).
Earp died on January 13, 1929.[14] Known as a Western lawman, gunfighter, and boxing referee, he had earned notoriety for his handling of the Fitzsimmons–Sharkey fight and his role in the O.K. Corral gunfight. This changed only after his death when the extremely flattering biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart N. Lake was published in 1931, becoming a bestseller and creating his reputation as a fearless lawman. Since then, Earp's fame and notoriety have been increased by films, television shows, biographies, and works of fiction. Long after his death, he has many devoted detractors and admirers.
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born on March 19, 1848 in Illinois,[15] the fourth child of Nicholas Porter Earp and his second wife, Virginia Ann Cooksey. He was named after his father's commanding officer in the Mexican–American War, Captain Wyatt Berry Stapp, of the 2nd Company Illinois Mounted Volunteers. Some evidence supports Wyatt Earp's birthplace as 406 S. 3rd St. in Monmouth, Illinois, though the street address is disputed by Monmouth College professor and historian William Urban.[16]
The Wyatt Earp Birthplace, Inc., 1986, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places 1999. The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency visited the home at 406 So. 3rd St. and submitted the nomination. Wyatt had seven full siblings – James, Virgil, Martha, Morgan, Warren, Virginia, and Adelia – and an elder half-brother and half-sister, Newton and Mariah-Ann Earp, from his father's first marriage.
In March 1849,[17] or in early 1850,[18] Nicholas Earp joined about a hundred other people in a plan to relocate to San Bernardino County, California, where he intended to buy farmland.[18] Just 150 miles (240 km) west of Monmouth on the journey, their daughter Martha became ill. The family stopped and Nicholas bought a new 160-acre (65 ha) farm 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Pella, Iowa.[17][19] Martha died there on May 26, 1856.[20]
Nicholas and Virginia Earp's last child Adelia was born in June 1861 in Pella.[18] Newton, James, and Virgil joined the Union Army on November 11, 1861. Their father was busy recruiting and drilling local companies, so Wyatt and his two younger brothers Morgan and Warren were left in charge of tending 80 acres (32 ha) of corn. Wyatt was only 13 years old, too young to enlist, but he tried on several occasions to run away and join the army. Each time, his father found him and brought him home.[2] James was severely wounded in Fredericktown, Missouri, and returned home in summer 1863. Newton and Virgil fought several battles in Missouri, Mississippi, and Tennessee, and later followed the family to California.[21]
On May 12, 1864, Nicholas Earp organized a wagon train and headed to San Bernardino, California, arriving on December 17.[22][23] By late summer 1865, Virgil found work as a driver for Phineas Banning's stage coach line in California's Imperial Valley, and 16-year-old Wyatt assisted. In spring 1866, Wyatt became a teamster transporting cargo for Chris Taylor. From 1866 to 1868, he drove cargo over 720 miles (1,160 km) on the wagon road from Wilmington through San Bernardino, then Las Vegas, Nevada, to Salt Lake City, Utah Territory.[24][25]
In spring 1868 Earp was hired to transport supplies needed to build the Union Pacific Railroad. He learned gambling and boxing while working on the rail head in the Wyoming Territory.[2] He developed a reputation from officiating boxing matches[26] and refereed a fight between John Shanssey and Prof. Mike Donovan[27] on July 4, 1869, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in front of 3,000 spectators.[28]
In spring 1868 the Earps moved east again to Lamar, Missouri, where Wyatt's father Nicholas became the local constable. Wyatt rejoined the family the next year. Nicholas resigned as constable on November 17, 1869, to become the Justice of the Peace. Wyatt was appointed constable in his place.[30][29]
Virgil soon went to Missouri and Wyatt to Beardstown, Illinois, 70 miles (110 km) south, where he spent the summer of 1869. Beardstown was undergoing a boom thanks to a rail line being laid through town.[31]
During that summer in Beardstown, a railroad brakeman named Tom Pinard mocked Wyatt, calling him "the California boy", a euphemism for coward, implying that Wyatt had gone to California to avoid serving in the Civil War. Although Wyatt had attempted to join the army when he was 13 and been stopped by his father, he took offense at Piner's remarks.[32]: 209 They fought inside Walton's Hotel, a brothel owned by John T. Walton, and Wyatt tossed Pinard outside. Pinard drew his gun and so did Wyatt. The two men exchanged shots; Wyatt wounded Pinard in the hip.[33]
In late 1869 Earp courted 20-year-old Urilla Sutherland, daughter of William and Permelia Sutherland who operated the Exchange Hotel in Lamar, Missouri, the Barton County seat.[34] They were married by Earp's father on January 10, 1870.[29] Wyatt bought a lot on the outskirts of town for $50 where he built a house in August 1870. Urilla was about to deliver their first child when she died from typhoid fever.[2] In November, Earp sold the lot and house for $75.
Earp went through a downward spiral after Urilla's death, and he had a series of legal problems. On March 14, 1871, Barton County filed a lawsuit against him in the amount of $200 (about $4,500 today) and his sureties which included his father. He was in charge of collecting license fees for Lamar, which were designated to fund local schools, but had failed to turn the money over to the county.[35]
On March 28, 1871, Earp, Edward Kennedy, and John Shown were charged with stealing two horses from William Keys while in the Indian country, "each of the value of $100".[35] Only three days later on March 31, James Cromwell filed a lawsuit against him alleging that he had erased and rewritten a dollar figure on a judgement against Cromwell and that Earp had collected and kept the difference.[35] The court seized Cromwell's mowing machine and sold it for $38 to make up the difference between what Earp turned in and what Cromwell owed. Cromwell's suit claimed that Earp owed him $75, the estimated value of the machine.[36]
On April 6, Deputy U.S. Marshal J. G. Owens arrested Earp for the horse theft. Commissioner James Churchill arraigned him on April 14 and set bail at $500. Wyatt was summoned to appear at a hearing on the matter. Before he could appear, Wyatt sold his property, escaped through the roof of the jail, and headed for Peoria, Illinois.[2][35]
On May 15, an indictment was issued against Earp, Kennedy, and Shown. John Shown's wife Anna claimed that Earp and Kennedy got her husband drunk and then threatened his life to persuade him to help steal the horses. On June 5, Kennedy was acquitted while the case remained against Earp and Shown. The new constable wrote that he had "good reason to believe [and] does believe that Wyatt S. Earp def[initely] is not a resident of this state, that Wyatt S. Earp has absconded or absented himself from his usual place of abode in this state so that the ordinary process of law cannot be processed against him."[35]
Peoria had grown to a city of 22,000 in the 1870s and had earned a reputation as a wide-open city whose community leaders mostly ignored illegal alcohol use, gambling, prostitution, and other vices.[37][38][39] But Peoria police raided a brothel on February 24, 1872, and arrested Wyatt and Morgan Earp, George Randall, and four women including Jane Haspel. The men were charged with "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame,"[40] and later fined $20 and court costs. In Root's Peoria City Directory for 1872–73, published on March 1, 1872, Wyatt is a resident in the home of Jane Haspel at Washington Street near the corner of Hamilton. When he was arrested, he was not merely a customer.[33]
Both Earps were arrested for the same crime again on May 11.[41] "Wyat [sic] Earp and his brother Morgan Earp were each fined $44.55 and as they had not the money and would not work, they languish in the cold and silent calaboose ..." They were freed in time for their sister Adelia's eleventh birthday on June 16, 1872. Wyatt and Morgan visited her in the family home in Lamar, Missouri. Wyatt returned to the Peoria area.[33]
On September 10, 1872, he was arrested aboard the Beardstown Gunboat, a 50-foot keelboat fitted with a ramshackle, eight-bedroom house and used as a floating brothel. To evade the local authorities, the boat picked up passengers and made slow runs along the Illinois River, tying up at various points along the way. It was owned by John T. Walton, the same man who three years earlier operated the brothel in Beardstown where Wyatt had his first gunfight.[33] A prostitute named Sally Heckell was arrested with him, and she called herself his wife; she was likely the 16-year-old daughter of Jane Haspel.[6]
The Peoria Daily National Democrat reported:
Some of the women are said to be good looking, but all appear to be terribly depraved. John Walton, the skipper of the boat and Wyatt Earp, the Peoria Bummer, were each fined $43.15. Sarah Earp, alias Sally Heckell, calls herself the wife of Wyatt Earp.[42]: 11
By calling Earp the "Peoria Bummer," the newspaper put him in a class of "contemptible loafers who impose on hard-working citizens",[43] a "beggar"[6] and worse than tramps. They were men of poor character who were chronic lawbreakers,[44] and Peoria constables probably considered him to be a pimp.[45][46][47][35] Earp and Walton were fined $44, more than any others who were arrested. The size of the fines may indicate that the judge considered them to be pimps and not merely customers.[33] Wyatt soon left Peoria for Wichita, Kansas.
During a conversation with Earp years later, Stuart N. Lake took notes in which Earp claimed that he'd been hunting buffalo during the winter of 1871–1872.