Wyatt Erp

Wyatt Erp

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was a gambler and Deputy U.S. Marshal in Tombstone, Arizona, and took part in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cowboys. To Wyatt's displeasure, the 30-second gunfight defined the rest of his life. 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, and marshal and in combat.

Earp was at different times in his life a city policeman, county sheriff, a teamster, buffalo hunter, bouncer, saloon-keeper, gambler, brothel-owner, pimp, miner, and a 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 most of his life from one boomtown to another. He left Dodge City in 1879 and with his brothers James and Virgil, moved to Tombstone, Arizona where a huge 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 outlaw 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, during 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 which killed three of the Cowboys they thought responsible.

After leaving Tombstone, Earp and his third wife Josephine Earp moved from one boom town to another, starting in Eagle City, Idaho; followed by San Diego, California; Nome, Alaska; Tonopah, Nevada; and finally Vidal, California. An extremely flattering, largely fictionalized, best-selling 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.