He left Dodge City in 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, in the Gunfight at the O. 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. Contrary to the popular image of Earp as a prolific gunfighter, there is no documented case of him being involved in a gunfight before the infamous "showdown" at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.
Over six feet tall, Earp typically subdued drunks and toughs with firm persuasion or a sharp crack to the back of the head with his revolver, a practice known as "buffaloing. Earp was praised regularly by the local press for his work on the Dodge City police force from to He maintained a close friendship with dentist, gambler, and suspected highwayman John Henry "Doc" Holliday. On October 26, , growing bad blood between the Earps and members of a group of local hard cases and rustlers, the Clanton-led "cowboy faction," erupted in the legendary confrontation outside Tombstone's OK Corral, leaving Billy Clanton and brothers Frank and Tom McLaury dead.
Accounts suggest that Earp fired the fatal shot that killed Frank McLaury. Clanton sympathizers later took revenge on the Earps, wounding Virgil and killing Morgan in separate ambushes. In turn, Wyatt, who was appointed U. If not for the gunfight at the OK Corral, Wyatt Earp might only have been a colorful historical footnote. The transformation of Earp into a folk hero began with the nationwide newspaper coverage of the gunfight and its aftermath and evolved through the writings of Bat Masterson and Earp biographer Stuart N.
Lake, whose Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal is the source of many of the tall tales embellishing, idealizing, and romanticizing the historical Earp. Earp spent the years after Tombstone pursuing a variety of business ventures and died peacefully in Los Angeles, California, on January 13, Corral melee—three dead and three wounded in 30 seconds— surpasses the other gunfights in both the caliber of hatred between the factions and the Western Valhalla status of two of its participants, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.
A minor actor in the drama was Sheriff Behan, the one-time lover of Josie Marcus. Before the fight he tried to convince the Clantons to surrender their arms and was told they would as soon as the Earps and Holliday surrendered theirs. Ike Clanton and Tom McLaury rode into Tombstone on October 25, , and the next day were arrested by Virgil Earp for carrying firearms within the city limits.
After being disarmed and released, the two were joined by their brothers, Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury, and Virgil was determined that they would surrender their arms as well.
Virgil recruited Wyatt and Morgan as deputies in what he knew would be a dangerous arrest, and on that sunny Wednesday afternoon, as the Earps walked down Fremont Street, Doc Holliday jumped off the boardwalk, shotgun in hand, to join them.
The four headed for the vacant lot behind the O. Corral where the Clantons, McLaurys, and a rustler and would-be gunslinger named Billy Claiborne, had gathered. Virgil took a bullet in the leg, Morgan was shot in the shoulder; Wyatt was untouched. He kept a low profile, but in San Francisco in December , he refereed a prizefight between Bob Fitzsimmons and Tom Sharkey that got his name and his Old West history in the newspapers.
He not only wore his sidearm in the ring but also disqualified Fitzsimmons for a low blow. From until his death, Wyatt and Josie made their home in Los Angeles where his friends included the movie actors William S.
John, visited the Earps frequently at their Los Angeles home and wrote of him in magazines and in her book The Honeycomb. She remembered him as tall and straight as a pine tree at age He had snow-white hair and moustache but did not seem old. Tom Mix and William S. Hart were among his pallbearers. When Josie died in at the age of 75, she was buried beside him.
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