Doc Holliday walked into the back room of the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City in the summer of 1878, his card game interrupted by the chaos erupting on Front Street. Two dozen cowboys, led by Toby Driskill and Ed Morrison, had ridden into town bombarding the buildings as they galloped down the street, then stormed into the saloon, vandalizing the room and harassing patrons. Wyatt Earp had rushed to the scene and found himself confronted by a large group of armed cowboys. Morrison stepped forward and sneered, “Pray and jerk your gun.
Your time has come. ” Before anyone could move, a voice sounded from behind Morrison. It was Holliday, his revolver pressed to the cowboy’s temple. “Any of you bastards pulls a gun and your leader here loses what’s left of his brains,” he said.
The cowboys dropped their arms. Wyatt clubbed Morrison over the head with his long-barrel Colt, disarmed both leaders, and marched them to the jail. Earp always credited Holliday with saving his life that day. John Henry “Doc” Holliday was born on August 14, 1851, in Griffin, Georgia.
His father, Henry B. Holliday, was a trained pharmacist, a veteran of the Cherokee Indian War and the Mexican-American War, and a major in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. After returning from Mexico, Henry had brought home an orphaned Mexican boy named Francisco Hidalgo. In 1849 he married Alice Jane McKay, and the couple had a daughter who died young.
The family moved to Valdosta, Georgia, where Major Holliday became one of the town’s leading citizens, serving two terms as mayor, acting as secretary of the County Agricultural Society, and holding positions in the Masonic Lodge and the Confederate Veterans camp. John Henry attended the Valdosta Institute, studying Greek, Latin, and French. When John was fifteen, his mother died of consumption, the disease later known as tuberculosis. Her death hit him especially hard because the two had been very close.
His father remarried just three months later. Perhaps encouraged by his family’s standing and the fact that his cousin Robert Holliday had founded the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, John enrolled there in 1870. After graduating, he began working as a dentist in Atlanta. Educated and respected as he was, John Henry was a hot-tempered southerner quick to reach for a gun.
On one occasion, when African-American men were swimming in his favorite swimming hole, an outraged Holliday started shooting over their heads. One of the men shot back. No one was killed, but it was the first recorded account of Holliday’s affair with the six-shooter. Shortly after starting his dental practice, Holliday discovered he had contracted tuberculosis, most likely from his mother.
Physicians told him he had little time to live and advised him to move to a drier climate. In October 1873 he packed up and headed to Dallas, Texas. Bat Masterson later wrote that Holliday moved because of the shooting incident in Georgia. In Dallas, Holliday worked briefly with another dentist, but as coughing spells racked his body during delicate procedures, his business declined.
He was forced to find another way to earn a living. Holliday was a most unusual character in the West. A highly educated and refined man in a place where such things were uncommon, he was fluent in Latin, played the piano well, dressed nattily, and displayed the manners of a southern gentleman. His intelligence made him a natural at gambling, which quickly became his means of support.
But he was miserable with the knowledge of his impending death. He was moody, drank heavily, and lived with no fear of death. On January 2, 1875, Holliday was involved in the first recorded gunfight of his life. He argued with a local tavern owner in Dallas, and the argument escalated into a violent encounter.
Despite multiple shots fired, no one was injured, and both men were arrested. A few days later, Holliday again got into a disagreement and killed a prominent citizen with two carefully aimed bullets. Fearing for his safety, he fled Dallas with authorities on his trail. He headed to Jacksboro, a wild and lawless cow town near an army post.
There he found work dealing faro, carrying a gun in a shoulder holster, another on his hip, and a knife. He was involved in three more gunfights in a short time, leaving one man dead, but no legal action was taken due to the town’s lawless nature. In the summer of 1876, another disagreement led to violence. Holliday killed a soldier from Fort Richardson, which brought the United States government into the investigation.
A reward was issued for his capture, and he was pursued by the army, the Texas Rangers, local lawmen, and ordinary citizens seeking the bounty. Aware that capture meant hanging, Holliday fled to Kansas territory and then Colorado, making stops in Pueblo, Leadville, Georgetown, and Central City. He left three more dead bodies in his wake. He eventually settled in Denver under the alias Tom Mackey, working as a faro dealer.
An argument with a well-known gambler named Bud Ryan left Ryan seriously wounded, and public resentment forced Holliday to run again, first to Wyoming, then New Mexico, and finally back to Texas. At Fort Griffin, while dealing cards at John Shanssey’s saloon, Holliday met Mary Katherine Horony, known as Big Nose Kate, a tough and independent woman who occasionally worked as a prostitute despite her good education. The two developed feelings for each other. She was the only woman known to have held Holliday’s heart.
Around this time, Wyatt Earp was on the trail of a train robber named Dave Rudabaugh. Earp had been issued an acting commission as a U. S. Deputy Marshal to pursue the outlaw out of state and had followed his trail for four hundred miles.
He visited Shanssey’s saloon asking about Rudabaugh. Shanssey directed him to Holliday, who had played cards with the outlaw. Earp was skeptical about talking to Holliday, as it was well known that Holliday hated lawmen. But when Earp found him that evening, Holliday was surprisingly willing to talk.
He told Earp that he thought Rudabaugh had backtrailed to Kansas. Earp wired the information to Sheriff Bat Masterson in Dodge City, and the news was instrumental in apprehending Rudabaugh. The unlikely pair formed a friendship that would last for years. During the winter of 1878, while Holliday was in Fort Griffin looking for gambling opportunities, he killed a fellow gambler named Ed Bailey.
According to an 1896 interview with Wyatt Earp, Holliday was playing poker with Bailey, who kept picking up the discards and looking at them, a strict violation of Western poker rules. Holliday warned him twice, but Bailey ignored him. The third time, Holliday raked in the pot without showing his hand. Bailey immediately went for his pistol, but Holliday whipped out a knife and caught him just below the chest.
Bailey died. Holliday was detained in his room at the Planter’s Hotel, and a vigilante group formed to seek revenge. Knowing the mob would quickly overtake the local lawmen, Big Nose Kate set fire to an old shed. As everyone fought the spreading blaze, she confronted the officer guarding Holliday with a pistol in each hand, disarmed him, and the two escaped on stolen horses.
They headed to Dodge City, registering at a boarding house as Doctor and Mrs. J. H. Holliday.
Grateful for Kate’s actions, Holliday gave up gambling and hung out his dentist shingle again. In return, Kate promised to give up prostitution. But she could not stand the quiet and boredom of respectable living. She told Holliday she was returning to the dance halls and gambling dens, and the two split up, as they were destined to do many times during the remainder of his life.
Holliday went back to gambling. In Dodge City, Holliday’s friendship with Wyatt Earp seemed strange to the citizens, but Earp ignored them. After the confrontation at the Long Branch, Holliday remained on the side of the law while in town. But in their ongoing love-hate relationship, Kate and Holliday had another violent quarrel.
Furious, Holliday saddled his horse and headed out, winding up in Trinidad, Colorado. Shortly after arriving, he was goaded into a fight by a young gambler known as Kid Colton, who wound up in the dusty street with two bullets in him. Holliday rode on to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where in the late summer of 1879 he hung out his shingle for the last time. The idea was short-lived.
A few weeks later, he argued with a local gunman named Mike Gordon. They took the argument to the street, where Holliday politely invited Gordon to start shooting whenever he felt like it. Gordon accepted the invitation and died with three shots in his belly. A lynch mob formed, and Holliday returned to Dodge City, only to find that Wyatt had gone to a new silver strike in Tombstone, Arizona.
Holliday joined the Earps in Tombstone in September 1880. Some accounts report that the Earps sent for him to help deal with the outlaw Cowboys. Holliday quickly became embroiled in the local politics and violence that led up to the gunfight at the O. K.
Corral. When the Earps arrived in Tombstone, the outlaw Clanton gang ran roughshod over the territory. Old Man Clanton, his sons Ike, Finn, and Billy, the McLaury brothers, Frank and Tom, Curly Bill Brocius, John Ringo, and their followers resented the Earps’ arrival. Holliday was a welcome addition to the Earps’ fight with the cowboy faction.
On October 26, 1881, Virgil Earp received reports that the Cowboys, with whom they had repeated confrontations, were armed in violation of the city ordinance requiring them to deposit their weapons at a saloon or stable. Fearing trouble, Virgil temporarily deputized Holliday and sought backup from his brothers Wyatt and Morgan. Virgil retrieved a short coach gun from the Wells Fargo office, and the four men went to find the Cowboys on Fremont Street. They ran into County Sheriff Behan, who told them he had disarmed the Cowboys to avoid alarming citizens.
Virgil gave the coach gun to Holliday, who concealed it under his long coat, and took Holliday’s walking stick. The two forces met ninety yards down an alley from the O. K. Corral, off Fremont Street between Fly’s Photo Gallery and the Jersey Livery stable.
“You are under arrest for attempting to disturb the peace,” Virgil announced. The Cowboys tensed. “Hold on, I don’t want that,” cried Virgil, but Morgan and Holliday braced for action. What happened next was a blur lasting about thirty seconds.
The shooting started when Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury cocked their pistols. It is unknown who fired the first shot, but Holliday’s bullet was the first to hit home, tearing through Frank McLaury’s belly. Billy Clanton fired at Virgil but missed when Morgan’s shot hit him through the rib cage. Billy Claiborne ran as soon as shots were fired.
Ike Clanton panicked, threw his gun down, and pleaded for his life. “Fight or get out like Claiborne,” Wyatt yelled. Ike withdrew a hidden gun and fired one more round toward Wyatt before disappearing. The sound distracted Morgan enough that Tom McLaury sent a bullet into his side.
Holliday instantly countered, blowing Tom away with blasts from both barrels of his shotgun. Desperately wounded and dying, Billy Clanton fired blindly into the gunsmoke, striking Virgil in the leg. Wyatt responded by sending several rounds into Billy. Then it was silent.
The thirty-second shootout left Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury, and Tom McLaury dead. Virgil took a shot to the leg, and Morgan suffered a shoulder wound. The Earps and Holliday were tried for murder, but it was determined they acted within the law. On March 18, 1882, the cowboy gang struck again.
While Morgan Earp played pool at Campbell and Hatch’s saloon, a shot fired from the alley’s darkness struck him in the back. Morgan’s body was dressed in one of Doc Holliday’s suits and shipped to his parents in Colton, California, for burial. Wyatt and Holliday sought revenge on those who killed Morgan. Within a year, they eliminated many outlaws, including Frank Stilwell and Curly Bill Brocius.
Wyatt and Holliday left Tombstone, never to return, vowing to seek revenge on John Ringo, Ike Clanton, Pete Spence, and Hank Swilling. On July 14, 1882, Holliday’s longtime nemesis Johnny Ringo was found dead in the West Turkey Creek Valley near Chiricahua Peak, Arizona Territory. He had a bullet hole in his right temple, and a revolver hung from a finger of his hand. A popular story holds that Holliday stepped in for Earp in response to a gunfight challenge from Ringo and shot him, but the Pueblo Daily Chieftain reported that Holliday was seen in Salida, Colorado, on July 7, more than 550 miles from where Ringo’s body was found.
Ringo’s death remains a mystery. Holliday’s health continued to deteriorate. He was not one to believe in miraculous cures, but hoping the Yampa hot springs and sulfur vapors might help, he headed for Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in May 1887, registering at the fashionable Hotel Glenwood. He grew steadily worse, spending his last fifty-seven days in bed at the hotel, delirious for fourteen of them.
On November 8, 1887, he awoke clear-eyed and asked for a glass of whiskey. He drank it down with enjoyment, then looked down at his bare feet and said, “This is funny. ” He died. He had always figured he would be killed with his boots on.
Holliday had come West years before knowing his days were numbered, often saying his end would come from lead poisoning, a rope, a knife, or drink. He is buried at Glenwood Springs Cemetery, on a steep hillside overlooking the valley below. Despite his reputation, Holliday narrowly escaped death on nine occasions, including four attempts to hang him and five gunshot wounds.
The exact number of men he killed remains unknown.