Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American gambler, Pima County, Arizona Deputy Sheriff, and Deputy Town Marshal in Tombstone, Arizona, who took part in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cowboys. He is often regarded as the central figure in the shootout in Tombstone, although his brother Virgil was Tombstone City Marshal and Deputy U.S. Marshal that day, and had far more experience as a sheriff, constable, marshal, and soldier in combat. Earp lived a restless life. He was at different times in his life a constable, city policeman, county sheriff, teamster, buffalo hunter, bouncer, saloon-keeper, gambler, brothel owner, pimp, miner, and boxing referee. Earp spent his early life in Iowa. His first wife Urilla Sutherland Earp died while pregnant less than a year after they married. Within the next two years he was arrested, sued twice, escaped from jail, then was arrested three more times for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame". He landed in the cattle boomtown of Wichita, Kansas, where he became a deputy city marshal for one year and developed a solid reputation as a lawman. In 1876 he followed his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas, where he became an assistant city marshal. In winter 1878, he went to Texas to gamble where he met John Henry "Doc" Holliday, whom Earp credited with saving his life. Earp moved constantly throughout his life from one boomtown to another. He left Dodge City in 1879 and with his brothers James and Virgil, moved to Tombstone, where a silver boom was underway. The Earps bought an interest in the Vizina mine and some water rights. There, the Earps clashed with a loose federation of outlaws known as the Cowboys. Wyatt, Virgil, and their younger brother Morgan held various law enforcement positions that put them in conflict with Tom and Frank McLaury, and Ike and Billy Clanton, who threatened to kill the Earps. The conflict escalated over the next year, culminating on October 26, 1881 in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, in which the Earps and Holliday killed three of the Cowboys. In the next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was assassinated. Pursuing a vendetta, Wyatt, his brother Warren, Holliday, and others formed a federal posse that killed three of the Cowboys they thought responsible. Unlike his lawmen brothers Virgil and James, and Doc Holliday, Wyatt was never wounded in any of the gunfights, which only added to his mystique after his death. Wyatt was a lifelong gambler and was always looking for a quick way to make money. After meeting again in San Francisco, Earp and his third wife Josephine Earp joined a gold rush to Eagle City, Idaho, where they had mining interests and a saloon. They left there to race horses and open a saloon during a real estate boom in San Diego, California. Back in San Francisco, Wyatt raced horses again, but his reputation suffered irreparably when he refereed the Fitzsimmons-Sharkey boxing match and called a foul that led everyone to believe he fixed the fight. They moved briefly to Yuma, Arizona before they next followed the Alaskan Gold Rush to Nome, Alaska, where they opened the biggest saloon in town. After making a large sum of money there, they opened another saloon in Tonopah, Nevada, the site of a new gold find. And finally in about 1920 they worked on several mining claims in Vidal, California, retiring in the hot summers to Los Angeles. When he died in 1929, he was better known for his notorious handling of the Fitzsimmons-Sharkey fight than the O.K. Corral gun fight. An extremely flattering, largely fictionalized, bestselling biography published after his death created his reputation as a fearless lawman. As a result of the book, Wyatt Earp has been the subject of and model for a large number of films, TV shows, biographies and works of fiction that have increased his mystique. Earp's modern-day reputation is that of the Old West's "toughest and deadliest gunman of his day". Until the book was published, Earp had a dubious reputation as a minor figure in Western history. In modern times, Wyatt Earp has become synonymous of the stereotypical image of the Western lawman, and is a symbol of American frontier justice.