Wyatt Earp: Frontier Lawman – Legends of the American West
Okay, folks, let’s talk about Wyatt Earp. When you think "Old West lawman," chances are, his name pops into your head. But the dude was way more than just a badge and a six-shooter. He was a real jack-of-all-trades in the Wild West – a buffalo hunter, a miner, a card shark, a stagecoach driver, a saloon owner… you name it, he probably did it!
From Illinois Boy to Frontier Man
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp came into the world on March 19, 1848, in Monmouth, Illinois. His parents, Nicholas and Virginia Earp, were solid folks. Dad was a lawyer and farmer, and instilled a sense of right and wrong in his kids. Wyatt was named after one of his dad’s old Army buddies. He had older siblings: James, Virgil, and Martha.
The Earp clan kept growing, and they moved to Iowa to start a farm. Soon enough, Morgan, Warren, and Adelia joined the family. Nicholas Earp always emphasized the importance of the land and the law, values he passed down to all his kids.
In 1864, the family packed up and headed west to California. During the journey, young Wyatt got his first gun – a combo shotgun and rifle – to help protect the family from, as they called them back then, "Indians." Wyatt quickly got himself a six-gun and practiced constantly, becoming a crack shot.
Once in California, Wyatt bounced around different jobs, working as a teamster and on the railroad for a while. But the pull of the frontier was strong, and he started heading back east, working as a buffalo hunter, scouting wagon trains, and doing more railroad work.
Love, Loss, and a Brush with the Law
By 1870, Wyatt had made his way to Lamar, Missouri, where he fell head-over-heels for a woman named Urilla Sutherland. They got married, but their happiness was short-lived. Poor Urilla passed away within a year. The story goes that she either died during childbirth or from typhoid fever.
Heartbroken, Wyatt drifted into Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), where he worked as a buffalo hunter and stagecoach driver. But trouble found him, and he and a couple of companions were accused of stealing horses. He posted bail and skipped town, hightailing it to Kansas before the case could go to trial.
Meeting Legends and Making a Name
In 1871, Wyatt met Wild Bill Hickok in Kansas City, Missouri. He also met other iconic figures like Buffalo Bill Cody, Jack Gallagher, and Billy Dixon. Wyatt always spoke highly of Hickok, calling him a courageous and deadly pistol shot. Wild Bill taught Wyatt a thing or two about buffalo hunting, and it was on the Kansas prairie that Wyatt first met Bat Masterson.
August 1873 marked the beginning of the Earp legend. It all happened in Ellsworth, Kansas, a wild railhead town full of drunken cowboys fresh off the trail. Among them were Billy and Ben Thompson, two notorious gunmen who preferred shooting to talking.
Wyatt knew about the Thompsons and kept his distance. But one day, he found himself near Brennan’s Saloon when a loud argument erupted. The Thompsons were causing trouble with a couple of gamblers, John Sterling and Jack Morco, who also happened to be a local lawman. The situation quickly escalated, and Sheriff Chauncey B. Whitney and two deputies showed up.
Sterling and Morco opened fire on the Thompsons, but Ben Thompson returned fire, driving them back. Then, Billy Thompson, a known alcoholic with a violent streak, turned his gun on Sheriff Whitney, a friend of the brothers. He shot the sheriff point-blank.
Wyatt watched the whole thing without getting involved. Then, Ellsworth Mayor James Miller entered the saloon and demanded that Thompson surrender his guns. Thompson refused, and Miller went looking for Whitney’s deputies, who had vanished after the shooting.
Seeing the deputies cowering on the sidelines, Wyatt remarked to Mayor Miller, "It’s none of my business, but if it was me, I’d get me a gun and arrest Ben Thompson or kill him." Miller ripped the badge off one of the deputies and told Wyatt, "I’ll make it your business."
Wyatt was stunned as Ben Thompson swaggered out of the saloon, hopped on his horse, and waved goodbye to his brother. "What kind of a town is this?" Wyatt asked the deputies and mayor.
Borrowing a pair of six-shooters, he caught up with Ben Thompson and ordered him to drop his gun. Thompson, knowing who Earp was, complied. Wyatt marched him to jail. Ben Thompson was fined $25 for disturbing the peace, and a warrant was issued for his brother Bill’s arrest.
Mayor Miller was so impressed that he offered Wyatt the job of town marshal at $125 a month. But Earp declined, saying he wanted to go into the cattle business with his brothers.
Ben Thompson later told Bat Masterson that he had a strong feeling Wyatt would have killed him if he hadn’t given up his gun. The story of Wyatt Earp backing down Ben Thompson spread like wildfire, and the legend was born.
Dodge City Days
In the spring of 1874, Wyatt moved to Wichita, Kansas, another Wild West town. He worked as a part-time lawman and city maintenance man, earning about $60 a month. However, he got fired after a fight with William Smith, who was running for city marshal against a friend of Wyatt’s, Mike Meagher.
Wyatt also nearly got arrested himself for accidentally discharging his weapon in public. While sitting in a saloon with his feet up on a table, his pistol fell out of its holster and hit the floor, firing a bullet that went through his coat and into the wall. Before heading to Dodge City, Wyatt and his brother James were almost arrested for vagrancy. Some even say that Wyatt stole city tax money before leaving town.
By the spring of 1876, the cattle trade had shifted to Dodge City, and Wyatt was offered the position of chief deputy marshal by the mayor.
Dodge City had already earned a reputation for lawlessness and gunfights. Buffalo hunters, railroad workers, drifters, and soldiers flocked to the town’s many saloons, gambling houses, and brothels. Gunfights were common, and the people of Dodge lived in fear.
Marshal Larry Deger, overwhelmed by the chaos, welcomed Wyatt with open arms. Soon, four assistant deputies were hired: Bat Masterson, Charlie Bassett, Bill Tilghman, and Neal Brown.
The new lawmen set out to restore order by establishing a "Deadline" north of the railroad yards on Front Street to keep the commercial part of the city quiet. Guns were banned north of the deadline, while the south side continued to operate as usual, with its saloons, brothels, and frequent gunfights. Anyone caught carrying a gun north of the deadline was immediately jailed, and Dodge City’s jail quickly filled up.
Wyatt even went after the notorious train robber Dave Rudabaugh, tracking him for 400 miles to Fort Griffin, Texas. There, he met Doc Holliday, who told him Rudabaugh had headed back to Kansas. Wyatt wired this information to Bat Masterson in Dodge City, which led to Rudabaugh’s capture. This unlikely partnership blossomed into a lasting friendship.
In the fall of 1876, Wyatt and his brother Morgan went to the Black Hills outside of Deadwood, South Dakota, in search of gold. But he returned to Dodge in May 1877 after the new mayor, James H. "Dog" Kelley, asked him to help deal with the rowdy Texas cowboys who were shooting up the town.
Wyatt became the new town marshal, deputized his brother Morgan, pushed for harsher sentences in court, banned certain troublemakers from town, and organized a citizen committee to help enforce the law.
Not long after Wyatt returned to Dodge, Doc Holliday showed up with Big Nose Kate. Doc was on the run from a lynching party after killing a man in Fort Griffin, Texas. He tried his hand at being a doctor but soon returned to gambling at the Alhambra and dealing cards at the Long Branch Saloon. The citizens of Dodge City found the friendship between Wyatt and Doc strange, but Wyatt ignored them, and Doc stayed on the right side of the law while in Dodge City.
One night, while Doc was dealing Faro in the Long Branch Saloon, a group of Texas cowboys arrived with a herd of cattle, ready to "let loose" after weeks on the trail.
Leading the cowboy mob was Ed Morrison, whom Wyatt had humiliated in Wichita, Kansas, and a man named Tobe Driskill. The cowboys stormed the town, galloping down Front Street with guns blazing and blowing out shop windows. They entered the Long Branch Saloon and began harassing the customers.
Wyatt entered the front door and found himself facing several gun barrels. Morrison sneered, "Pray and jerk your gun! Your time has come, Earp!"
Suddenly, a voice sounded from behind Morrison: "No, friend, you draw – or throw your hands up!" It was Doc, his revolver pointed at Morrison’s temple. Doc had been in the back room, his card game interrupted by the commotion.
"Any of you bastards pulls a gun, and your leader here loses what’s left of his brains!" The cowboys dropped their arms. Wyatt hit Morrison over the head with his Colt, disarmed Driskill and Morrison, and escorted them to the Dodge City Jail. Wyatt never forgot that Doc Holliday saved his life that night. He later said, "The only way anyone could have appreciated the feeling I had for Doc after the Driskill-Morrison business would have been to have stood in my boots when Doc came through the Long Branch doorway."
While in Dodge City, Wyatt met a saloon girl named Celia Anne Blalock, whom he called "Mattie." They lived as husband and wife, but Mattie’s laudanum addiction strained their relationship.
Meanwhile, Doc and Big Nose Kate had another one of their violent quarrels. Doc saddled his horse and left for Colorado, leaving Kate behind.
The Clay Allison Showdown
Another event that often gets written about is the 1878 "showdown" between Wyatt Earp and Clay Allison, a self-proclaimed "shootist" from New Mexico. The story goes that Allison planned to protest the treatment of his men by the Dodge City marshals, and was willing to back up his arguments with gun smoke. The Dodge City lawmen had gained a reputation for being hard on visiting cattle herders, with stories circulating that cattlemen had been robbed, shot, and beaten with revolvers. George Hoyt, who had once worked for Clay Allison, had been shot to death while shooting a pistol in the air in the streets of Dodge City.
There are several versions of the story. Some say that Allison and his men terrorized Dodge City, while Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson fled in fear. Others say that Wyatt Earp pressured Allison into leaving. And yet others say that Allison was talked into leaving by a saloon keeper and another cattleman, with little or no contact with Wyatt Earp.
In any case, there is no evidence of any serious altercation ever having happened. Historians surmise that Allison might have come to Dodge City looking for trouble, but nothing happened. While Allison and his men went from saloon to saloon, fortifying themselves with whiskey, Earp and his marshals began to assemble their forces. But in the end, Dick McNulty, owner of a large cattle outfit, and Chalk Beeson, co-owner of the Long Branch Saloon, intervened on behalf of the town, talking the gang into giving up their guns.
Tombstone Beckons
By 1879, Dodge City had calmed down, and Wyatt was spending more time at the gaming tables than enforcing the law. When his brother Virgil wrote to him about the booming town of Tombstone, Arizona, Wyatt, along with brothers James and Morgan and Mattie, headed west. Big Nose Kate followed, and when Doc Holliday returned to Dodge City and found everyone gone, he too headed to Arizona.
(To be continued… covering Tombstone, the OK Corral, and later years)