Earp Historical Timeline Page 2

Dodge City and the Move to Tombstone

• 1876, May 18 - Wyatt Earp is hired on in Dodge City, Kansas where he is serving under Marshal Larry Deger.
• 1876, June - Wyatt and Bat Masterson are deputy sheriffs serving under Ed O. Hougue and Charlie Bassett.
• 1876, July 1 - Wyatt arrests his boss, Hougue, for disturbing the peace.
• 1877, May 8 - After a winter in Kansas, Nicholas and his wife, Virgil and his wife Allie, and Newton and his wife, head to California by wagon train. Virgil and Allie get off in Prescott, Arizona where Allie works as a midwife and Virgil drives the mail. The rest continue to Colton, California.
• 1877, Spring - Meanwhile Wyatt and Morgan head to Deadwood, Dakota Territory where Wyatt variously makes money hauling wood and riding shotgun.
• 1877, July 7 - The Dodge City Times reports that Wyatt Earp has returned to town, and hopes that he will rejoin the force.
• 1877, Oct 9 - Citizen Virgil Earp receives positive notice in the Arizona Miner for assisting a sheriff and a marshal in a shootout with desperadoes.
• 1877, November 6 - Bat Masterson wins election and becomes sheriff of Dodge City. Wyatt travels to Fort Griffin where he meets Doc Holliday and Big Nosed Kate.
• 1878, January - Wyatt fails to get a job as a deputy in Fort Worth, Texas.
• 1878, April 9 - Bat's older brother, Marshal Ed Masterson, is shot dead in the line of duty in Dodge City, Kansas.
• 1878, May 8 - Wyatt returns to Dodge. He is appointed Assistant Marshal of Dodge City.
• 1878, June 8 - Wyatt's salary of $75.00 per month as Assistant Marshal is reported apporved in the Dodge City Time. The same issue runs an ad for J.H. Holliday, dentist.
• 1878, June 18 - Wyatt receives favorable reviews in the press for his job.
• 1878, July 26 - Three Texas cowboys hurrah Dodge before riding back to camp. One of their stray bullets smashes into the dance hall where Eddie Foy, a very famous performer of the day, is watching Bat Masterson deal Spanish Monte with Doc Holliday. Policemen Jim Masterson and Wyatt Earp give chase. In the ensuing volley of gunshots, one of the cowboys, George Hoy, falls from his horse, wounded. Even though he only is hit in the arm, he dies about a month later from infection.
• 1878, August - Ever involved in politics, Wyatt Earp helps choose the delegates to the Kansas State Republican Convention.
• 1878, August 17 - Wyatt and Jim Masterson have to discharge their firarms while trying to deal with some rowdy cow boys. The locale Texas cattleman side with the drunks. The local paper regrets the officers actions. There is speculation amongst historians that this is the event where Doc, according to Wyatt, saved Wyatt's life.
• 1878, September 4 - Virgil Earp takes his first job in law enforcement in Prescott, Arizona, as night watchman. Virgil also runs a sawmill operation.
• 1878, October 4 - Dora Hand, a popular lady in Dodge City, is shoot by mistake when James Kennedy, son of a wealthy Texas cattleman, attempts to murder Mayor "Dog" Kellye by firing into his house. It kills the lovely Dora Hand instead. There is great outrage in Dodge City.
• 1878, October 5 - A posse that included Sheriff Bat Masterson, Marshal Charlie Bassett, Deputy Sheriff William Duffy, Bill Tilghman, and Assistant Marshal Wyatt Earp captured James Kennedy near Meade, Kansas. However the assassin was later acquitted for "insufficient evidence". Rumor had it that his father paid off officials.
• 1878, November 8 - Virgil Earp wins election for Constable in Prescott.
• 1878, May 5 - Bat Masterson is timely in coming to the aid of Wyatt Earp as he tried to subdue three rowdy Missourians. It is, however, a quiet season in Dodge City.
• 1879, December 19 - Virgil was perhaps overzealous in his court ordered collection of a debt. Robert Roggen successfully sues.
• 1879, September - Virgil sends word to Wyatt of the boom in Tombstone which is good for Wyatt, since Dodge has lost it's 'snap'.
• 1879, November 1 - Wyatt and Mattie turn up in Prescott, Arizona Territory, with a number of wagons and fifteen throughbred horses. James and Bessie are right behind, along with Doc Holliday and Big Nosed Kate.
• 1879, November 27 - In Tuscon Virgil Earp is appointed Deputy United States Marshal.
• 1879, November 29 - The Earp clan arrives in Tombstone, a town of 1,000.
• 1879, December 16 - Morgan is appointed a policeman in Butte, Montana.
• 1880, January - Fred Marshal become the first town marshal of Tombstone and Wyatt is deputy sheriff of Pima County. By February the population has grown to 2,000.
• 1879, December 19 - Virgil was perhaps overzealous in his court ordered collection of a debt. Robert Roggen successfully sues.
• 1880, March 10 - Morgan has resigned from the Butte police force.
• 1880, March 26 - Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp arrests a counterfeiter.
• 1880, May 1 - John Philip Clum and associates start up the paper that becomes the Epitaph. First issue this day. Wells Fargo sets up an office in Tombstone with their agent Marshall Williams.
• 1880, June - Ike Clanton opens a restaurant in Tombstone and the Oriental Saloon and Gambling Parlor opens it's doors on the corner of Fifth and Allen Streets. Population now stands at 3,000.

  Onward to tensions in Tombstone ...

  Back in time ...

  Historians : Found an error? Please feel free to email me at wyatt@panhistoria.com with corrections.

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  Sources:
  The Illustrated Life and Times of Wyatt Earp by Bob Boze Bell, Boze Books, 1993
  Wyatt Earp and the Coeur d'Alene Gold!: Stampede to Idaho Territory, by Jerry Dolph and Arthur Randall, Eagle City Publishing, 1999
  Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend, by Casey Tefertiller, John Wiley & Sons, 1999
  Wyatt Earp: The Missing Years, San Diego in the 1880's, by Kenneth R. Cilch and Kenneth R. Cilch, Jr., Gaslamp Books, 1998
  The Earp Papers : In a Brother's Image by Don Chaput
  The Truth About Wyatt Earp by Richard E. Erwin