Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born on March 19, 1848, in Monmouth, Illinois. His parents, Nicholas and Virginia, were hardworking people. His father was a farmer and later a justice of the peace.
Life was not easy for the Earp family. They moved often as his father sought better opportunities. Wyatt had seven siblings, and growing up in such a large family taught him about loyalty and sticking together.
He had four brothers named Newton, James, Virgil, and Morgan, and three sisters named Martha, Virginia, and Adelia. Wyatt was particularly close to Virgil and Morgan. The three of them would one day stand side by side at the gunfight at the OK Corral.
Wyatt's formal education was limited. Because the family moved so often, his schooling was patchy. He learned the basics, but he said most of what he knew came from experience. Life itself, he believed, was his greatest teacher.
Before entering law enforcement, Wyatt did a bit of everything. He worked as a teamster hauling goods across the plains. For a time he was a buffalo hunter. He also tried his hand as a saloon keeper and a gambler. He wandered some before finding his calling.
His first real stint in law enforcement was as constable of Lamar, Missouri. He later worked as a deputy marshal in Dodge City, Kansas. Those towns were rough, filled with cowboys looking to blow off steam. Wyatt had a knack for keeping order without drawing too much blood, which earned him a reputation.
In 1870, Wyatt married his first wife, Urilla Sutherland. She died of typhoid fever just a year later. Wyatt went through a downward spiral after her death and had a series of legal problems.
In March 1871, Barton County filed a lawsuit against him for $200, along with his sureties, which included his father. Wyatt had been in charge of collecting license fees in Lamar designated to fund local schools, but he failed to turn the money over to the county.
After that, he had a few relationships. It was not until he met Josephine Marcus that he found someone to share his life with. The couple never had children, but Josephine was always his partner.
The gunfight at the OK Corral took place on October 26, 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona. It was the culmination of tensions between Wyatt's brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Clanton-McLaury gang. The fight lasted less than 30 seconds, but it felt like an eternity. When the dust settled, three of the outlaws were dead and the law was upheld.
Wyatt said he did not glory in the violence. Violence, in his view, was a last resort, but sometimes it was necessary.
The fight was not just about what happened that day. It was the result of a long-brewing feud. Tombstone was a town teetering on the edge of lawlessness. The Clantons and McLaureys were part of what folks called the cowboy element, often targeting ranchers and business people trying to make an honest living.
As lawmen, Virgil, Morgan, and Wyatt were sworn to uphold the peace, which put them squarely in the outlaws' sights. The fight itself was sparked by threats. The night before, Ike Clanton and Tom McLaurey made drunken claims about killing the Earps if they got in the way.
That morning, Virgil, serving as marshal, ordered Ike to leave town after disarming him. But the Clantons and McLaureys did not back down. They gathered weapons and waited near the corral, daring the lawmen to confront them.
When Virgil, Morgan, Doc Holliday, and Wyatt approached, they were acting on Virgil's authority to disarm the group. They did not go there to start a fight, but they were not about to let themselves be gunned down either.
The exchange was short but deadly. It was chaos, with gunfire, shouting, and smoke. When it ended, Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaurey were dead. Virgil and Morgan were wounded, and Doc Holliday had a grazed hip. Wyatt came out unscathed.
People called it a gunfight, but to Wyatt it was an ambush waiting to happen. They had no choice but to stand their ground and protect themselves. It was not about glory or revenge. It was about survival and upholding the law.
Wyatt said he had no regrets about his handling of the situation at Tombstone. Were it to be done over again, he said he would do exactly as he did at that time. He believed that with the deaths of the McLaureys and the Clantons, along with Stillwell, Florentino Cruz, and Curly Bill and the rest, organized and politically protected crime in Cochise County ceased.
Wyatt's brothers were a close-knit bunch. There were five boys in total. Newton, the oldest half-brother, preferred to stay out of the spotlight. James, the next older brother, lived a quieter life after his time in the Civil War.
Virgil, who was more like a father figure to Wyatt growing up, passed away in 1905. He was a real lawman through and through. He was with Wyatt during the events of the OK Corral and suffered greatly afterward. The Clanton gang shot him in the arm in retaliation, and he was never the same physically, though he kept his fighting spirit.
Morgan was killed in 1882, not long after the OK Corral. He was shot in the back while playing billiards in Tombstone. That loss hit Wyatt hard. He vowed to bring Morgan's killers to justice, and he saw that through.
Wyatt's relationship with Doc Holliday was complicated but built on mutual respect and trust. Doc was not an easy man to get close to, but when he considered you a friend, he was loyal to a fault.
They first met in Dodge City, Kansas, where Wyatt was working as a deputy marshal. Doc had already earned a reputation as a gambler and gunslinger. He was sharp and quick with his wit and his pistols, but he was also suffering terribly from tuberculosis. Despite his illness, he carried himself with a defiant strength that Wyatt admired.
Their friendship deepened when both ended up in Tombstone. Doc had Wyatt's back when he needed him most, especially during the tensions with the Clanton and McLaury gang. He was not a lawman, but he stood with the Earps at the OK Corral because he believed in loyalty and justice, or perhaps because he wanted to settle a few scores of his own.
Doc was not a saint by any stretch. He had a fiery temper and could be ruthless when provoked. But beneath that rough exterior, he had a code of honor. He never betrayed a friend and was willing to risk everything for those he cared about.
Wyatt believed many people misunderstood Doc. Yes, he was a gambler, a drinker, and a fighter, but he was also fiercely intelligent and had a dry sense of humor that could catch you off guard. Wyatt owed him his life more than once and tried to repay that debt by standing by him as his health declined.
In the end, Doc died in a sanatorium in Colorado, far from the action and adventure he had been drawn to all his life. Wyatt took comfort in knowing that Doc lived on his own terms.
After his time as a lawman, Wyatt moved around a lot. He and Josephine tried mining for a while. He ran saloons in California and Alaska. He even worked as a consultant for Hollywood movies later in life. He never really settled in one place for too long, but he always found a way to keep busy.
While living in Los Angeles, Wyatt became an unpaid film consultant for several silent cowboy movies. In 1915, he visited the set of director Allan Dwan's movie The Half-Breed, starring Douglas Fairbanks. As was the custom in those days, he was invited to join the party and mingle with the background action.
He also became friends with William S. Hart and later Tom Mix, the two most famous movie cowboys of their era. Hart was a stickler for realism in his depictions of Western life and relied on Wyatt for advice. Wyatt frequently visited the sets of director John Ford, whose movie starred Harry Carey.
In 1916, Wyatt went with his friend Jack London to visit the set of former cowboy, sailor, and movie actor turned film director Raoul Walsh, who was shooting at the Mutual Film Conglomerate studio in Edendale, California. Walsh took them to dinner at Al Levy's Cafe on Main and Third Street. During the meal, the highest-paid entertainer in the world, Charlie Chaplin, dropped by to greet Wyatt. Chaplin seemed particularly impressed with the former Tombstone marshal.
Wyatt tried to persuade his good friend William S. Hart to help set the record straight about his life and get a movie made. He believed that if the story were done on screen by Hart, it would do much to set him right before a public that had always been fed lies about him.
Looking back on his life, Wyatt said he had done his best to stand by his principles: justice, loyalty, and family. His life was full of challenges, but he would not change much. If folks remembered him as a man who did what was right, even when it was not easy, then he would be satisfied.
Wyatt Earp was the last surviving Earp brother and the last surviving participant of the gunfight at the OK Corral. He died at home in the Earps' small rented bungalow in Los Angeles of chronic cystitis on January 13, 1929, at the age of 80. The Los Angeles Times reported that he had been ill with liver disease for three years.
His brother Newton had died almost a month prior, on December 18, 1928. Wyatt was survived by Josephine and his sister Adelia Earp Edwards. He had no children. His wife Josephine was apparently too grief-stricken to attend the funeral.
The funeral was held at the Congregational Church on Wilshire Boulevard. Earp's pallbearers were William J. Hunsaker, Earp's attorney in Tombstone and a noted Los Angeles attorney; Jim Mitchell, a Los Angeles Examiner reporter and Hollywood screenwriter; George W. Parsons, a founding member of Tombstone's Committee of Vigilance; Wilson Mizner, a friend of Wyatt's during the Klondike Gold Rush; John Clum, a good friend from his days in Tombstone, former Tombstone mayor, and editor of the Tombstone Epitaph; William S. Hart, good friend and Western actor and silent film star; and Tom Mix, friend and Western film star. Newspapers reported that Tom Mix cried during his friend's service.
Located in southwest Kansas, legendary Dodge City sits on the banks of the Arkansas River and atop the world's largest underground water table, the Ogallala Aquifer. The surrounding Red Hills are a source of bountiful wildlife. Fort Dodge was built in 1865 to protect wagon trains and U.S. mail and to supply troops for the Indian Wars.
The "wickedest little city in the West" was officially born in 1872, growing up around the sod home of a local cattle rancher. Dodge City was a major stop along the historic Santa Fe Trail, the great wagon train and trade route between Franklin, Missouri, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, used until 1880.
This prairie town was also the buffalo capital of the United States for three years, until massive slaughters wiped out the herds. For a decade ending in the mid-1880s, the town was a major destination for cattle drives. With so many drifters, buffalo hunters, ex-soldiers, and gunslingers converging on the town, Dodge City became legendary for its lawlessness. With a population of only 1,200 in 1876, Dodge boasted 19 liquor-serving establishments.
Famous Kansas peacekeepers eventually made it into town, including Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, bringing the long arm of the law and plenty of fodder for old Western stories of glory. Today, Dodge City thrives with tourism based on the mystique of the cowboy and the legends of the Old West.