Wyatt Earp
In the early morning hours of January 13, 1929, an 80 year old man died peacefully in his sleep in a rented cottage in Los Angeles. The casual observer of the time would never have known that this frail old man was soon to become an indelible legend on the American landscape. Fifty years before, in the flash of a few seconds, the actions of this man and his brothers in a small Arizona boom town came to epitomize the classic shoot-out of the "Old West". In death he finally found the peace from fame and infamy that he fought half a century to escape. Both reviled and worshipped, Wyatt S. Earp defined one of the most famous and misunderstood eras of American history. This web page is an attempt to separate fact from fiction, to dig beneath the legend and maybe discover some truth about an important figure in American history.
The birth of the legend of Wyatt Earp is almost as complex as the events leading up to the shoot-out in Tombstone. The image of this man we have today has been blurred and misconstrued to the point where we no longer think of him as being a real person with real feelings, emotions, and faults in character. I would not be able to do them justice by trying to list all the reasons we know Wyatt Earp as we do today, but I will try to touch on some of the main reasons this man, so seemingly human, could have become the icon of western history as we know him. For a complete lesson on the birth of the Earp legend, there is a book a person should read, Showdown at the Hollywood Corral, Wyatt Earp and the Movies", by Dr. Paul Hutton in the Summer of 1995 issue of Montana, The Magazine of Western History.
It would seem that to explain how Wyatt Earp became known, it is necessary to defend him against some of the allegations of his strongest critics. One of the first things you will hear from critics, hack writers, and even some historians is that Wyatt Earp was completely unknown in his own day. There is a fair amount of truth in this statement. Prior to the 1960's, you couldn't find Wyatt Earp in any history books or encyclopedias. Prior to Lake's book in 1931, Wyatt Earp was no where near as well known as he would become. But it is completely untrue that Wyatt Earp was just a shadow in the "Old West" that no one had ever heard of. One need only to consult the newspapers of the day from Dodge City and Tombstone. Wyatt had a reputation as being a "capable" and "fearless" lawman. In one of the previous sections on this homepage, you will find a quote from an article in the Dodge City newspaper heralding Wyatt's return to Dodge after a brief time being away. Historians and searches of Kansas newspapers at the time have shown that Wyatt had built a reputation as being a "compelling" and "effective" officer. (1) Wyatt and his brothers gained national attention in the newspapers after the shoot-out at the OK Corral. Dr. Paul Hutton, Professor of History, University of New Mexico goes on to note in the same article that "Wyatt Earp was certainly well known in his day, especially in the mining towns and the gambling circuit." (2) When the citizens of Wichita and Dodge City heard that Wyatt and his brothers were up on charges of murder, they sent compelling letters of support to Judge Wells Spicer in Tombstone. Even the famous Hollywood actor, Charlie Chaplin (who wasn't from the United States), had heard of Wyatt before he met him one day on a movie set where Wyatt was hanging around with friend William S. Hart. When introduced to Wyatt, Chaplin said, "You're the bloke from Arizona, aren't you?" "Tamed the baddies, huh?" (3)
Perhaps nothing brought Wyatt Earp more attention prior to Lake's book in 1931 then the infamous Fitzsimmons-Sharkey fight that Wyatt refereed in the 1890's. Fitzsimmons was the heavy favorite and had knocked Sharkey to the mat, when Wyatt gave the match to Sharkey on a low blow. Of course, everyone on Sharkey's side said there was a low blow, and everyone on Fitzsimmons' side said there wasn't, and the crowd was equally split as well. Wyatt was burned up in the national papers for weeks on end after that decision with charges of favoritism and being "fixed". The case finally ended up in court when Fitzsimmons sued Earp for the prize money he lost. The case was eventually thrown out, but Wyatt's image was indelibly marked on the minds of the people of that era and so was his character tarnished by those who believed he was "fixed" to throw the fight for Sharkey.
Since about 1905, Wyatt had sought to have published his accounts of what had happened in Tombstone. Many people have criticized Earp for attempting to have his life story published. Earp felt he had a story to tell, and he felt the need to set some facts straight after books starting coming out in the early 1920's at first criticizing him, then the ones that painted him as the man who "tamed the west". Unfortunately for Earp, he was no writer. The story that he dictated to family friend John Flood was so poorly written that no publisher would take it. In the late 1920's, Earp was approached by a man named Stuart Lake, who asked to write Earp's life story. Since the "Flood Manuscript" wasn't being picked up by anyone, Earp turned over the work Flood had done to Lake to be "professionalized". Lake would also meet with Earp and conduct several interviews, how much he actually met with Earp will be discussed below. Wyatt Earp died in 1929 and Stuart Lake didn't publish his book "Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal" until 1931. Wyatt never got to see the finished project. Lake had taken the few interviews he had with Earp and turned Wyatt into an untarnished hero who tamed bad men of the west with his six shooter and generally left law and order in his wake wherever he went. Despite Josie Earp's attempts to sue Lake for what she described as being "outright lies", the legend of Wyatt Earp had been born, and it would never die. But with the notoriety and fame, came the people who sought to knock Wyatt Earp off of the golden throne that Lake had set him upon. Instead of knocking Lake's character, "Wyatt Earp" back down to earth into the real man he was, they sought to take him down even further and vilify his character and kick dirt on his name.
I won't go into debunking the debunkers very much, but I think it is important to point out the flaws in the mental processes of the authors who sought not to bring out the truth in Wyatt Earp, but only to soil his name. In almost every book that the prospective reader will read from an author that is critical to the Earps, they will find that the author used William Breakenridge's Helldorado as their core material and that they used Stuart Lake's Frontier Marshal as the spoken word of Wyatt Earp as dictated to Lake. Billy Breakenridge was a Deputy Sheriff in Tombstone under John Behan when Wyatt and his brothers were there. Breakenridge was insanely jealous of the notoriety Wyatt Earp had received and he made it very clear on more than one occasion that he thoroughly disliked the Earps. He would comment while he was writing his book how he intended to "burn up the Earps". His book in 1929 was the first large scale effort to bring Wyatt Earp down. But his lacking objectivity made his book poor core material for finding out about the "real" Wyatt Earp. In addition, "The Earp Brothers of Tombstone" by Frank Waters is poor core material as Waters seemed to have an axe to grind. Supposedly from the mouth of Allie Earp, "Earp Brothers", was actually more Waters' opinion surrounded by a few short interviews he actually had with Virgil's widow. Critics from the early part of the century would also endlessly quote oldtimers from Tombstone who told how much the Earps were disliked in Tombstone and how they were thought to be stage robbers. Tombstone was very factionalized in the days of Wyatt Earp and when the Earps and their Republican friends left Tombstone, all that was left was Clanton and McLaury supporters. Their biased opinions also make for poor research material. As for the latter charge, Ike Clanton and his supporters were the only ones in Tombstone who claimed that the Earps were involved in stage robbery, they were never charged with any such crime and there was no evidence as such. Enter "Frontier Marshal". Critics use this book to claim that Wyatt Earp was a braggart and a liar. Usually just prior to vilifying a particular story about Wyatt, they will say, "Earp told his biographer Stuart Lake..." The authors in question take Frontier Marshal to be a book from the mouth of Wyatt Earp. This is due, in large part, to Lake's assertion in the front of his book that it did indeed come, word for word, from the mouth of Wyatt Earp. When in fact, Lake would later admit that he actually spent little time with Wyatt and got very little information from him. He would go on to say that few quotes, if any, actually came from Earp and that he was able to put "words in the mouth" of the old man. (4) The fact that Lake found out was that Wyatt Earp, either because he couldn't remember or didn't want to, talked very little about the days in Tombstone. Earp was known to his family, friends, and strangers who met him as being extremely private, a man of few words, and rarely known to talk about the "old days". In later years when his excited nieces and nephews would pump him for information asking, "How many men did you really kill Uncle Wyatt?", Earp would quickly change the subject. He would go on to say to other people, "That fight didn't take but about 30 seconds, and it seems like , in my going on 80 years, we could find some other happenings to discuss." (5) This hardly sounds like a man prone to bragging and lying. Wyatt would later sell interviews to San Francisco area newspapers in the late 19th century detailing his exploits in Arizona. If you have read them, you will see what would appear to be some obvious bragging in them. Pro-Earp historians have pointed out that Wyatt provided the outlines for the interviews and a professional writer wrote the article. I myself have read these articles and I have also read the Wells Spicer Transcripts in which Wyatt gave his testimony. If you compare the two, it will probably be evident to you, as it was to me, that they are not the same people speaking. There was one killing that Wyatt Earp did take particular pride in, and that was the killing of Frank Stilwell. He would later comment to a family member that Stilwell was the "only man I ever had to kill."
Walter Noble Burns would become famous as one of the first authors to paint Wyatt Earp as the hero in white who saved Tombstone. His 1927 book, "Tombstone, An Iliad of the Southwest", incensed Earp because he had refused to give Burns his life story. Burns had interviewed Earp under the pretense of writing a story about Doc Holliday. While Earp probably would have admitted privately that he liked the way Burns told his story, it meant that Earp would have even more trouble getting the Flood Manuscript published, and he wouldn't get any money for Burns' unauthorized biography.
I think that history has yet to make it's final judgment on Wyatt Earp and his place in the history of the "Old West". As Walter Burns said, "Wyatt Earp was a man". He was a man of circumstance and did what he thought he had to do to survive. Whether we condemn him or laud him, we must not forget this fact. Because being a man, Wyatt Earp was not perfect. He was a compulsive gambler, opportunistic, he left his wife for another women, he landed in jail once or twice, he was prone to fighting and had a temper (they weren't called the Fighting Earps for nothing), there were few things he wouldn't do if it meant a profit, and his best friend was a notorious killer whom he may have lied for to protect. "He was a hard man living in hard times", Burns said. And thus we must keep Wyatt Earp in perspective.
Earp Genealogy
Wyatt Earp's family can reliably be traced back to Thomas Earp, Jr. (b. 1656, England - d. 1720, Maryland). It would appear that the first Earp to study law was Wyatt's grandfather, Walter, being a Justice of the Peace in Monmouth, Illinois, although his chosen profession was school teacher. He would marry and a son, Nicholas, Wyatt's father, would be born in 1813. Other children born to Walter and wife Martha were Lorenzo Dow in 1809, Elizabeth in 1811, Josiah Jackson in 1816, James in 1818, Francis in 1821, Walter C. (twin) in 1824, Jonathan Douglas (twin) in 1824, Sally Ann in 1827.
Walter and family later moved to Kentucky and there Nicholas married his first wife, Abigail Storm in 1836. To this union a son, Newton and daughter, Mariah, was born. Mariah would die a short time after her birth. Abigail Earp died on October 8, 1839, from what cause I have been unable to find. In 1840, Nicholas Earp married Virginia Ann Cooksey in Hartford, Kentucky. Following the marriage of Nicholas and Virginia, son James was born in 1841 and Virgil in 1843. Walter Earp, apparently setting the stage for what would be a forever traveling family of Earps, grew restless and moved with Nicholas and family to Monmouth, Illinois. There Walter was elected Justice of the Peace and Nicholas supported his family by being a cooper, dealing real estate, farming, and bootlegging. Further children to be born would be Wyatt in 1848 (March 19th), Morgan in 1851, Warren in 1855 and Adelia in 1861. Two other daughters, Virginia and Martha died early in age.
In 1850, Nicholas packed up the family and headed to Pella, Iowa. There the family would remain until Virgil, Newton and James went off to fight for the Union when the Civil War broke out. James would be wounded in battle and thereafter draw a permanent disability because of it. A story was told by Stuart Lake of a young Wyatt trying to run off and join the Union, but being stopped by his father.
With Virgil and Newton still off at war, and James recently returned home, Nicholas Earp again packed up the family and moved them in a wagon train to California in 1864. Virgil would eventually catch up with the family in California when he was discharged from the military. With older brother James wounded, Wyatt grew up fast on the trip west, helping hunt and fend off Indian raids. True to the Earp tradition, 1868 found the family moving again, this time to Lamar, Missouri. Shortly thereafter the family apparently moved to Wyoming for a time where Wyatt and Virgil worked on the railroads. The family would move back to Lamar before 1870 where Wyatt would have his first experience as a law man and marry his first wife. Nicholas and Virginia Earp would eventually settle down in the San Bernardino area of Southern California where Nicholas was elected to the County Court and served until his retirement a short time before his death . Virginia Earp would live until January 14, 1893. Nicholas died on February 12, 1907.
Wyatt Earp: The Early Years
In 1869, Wyatt returned to Lamar, Missouri. There he had his first experience in law enforcement. (1) In Lamar he ran against his older brother Newton for the position of Constable of the Lamar Police Force in 1870. Wyatt won the election by 35 votes. (2) Newton, being the half brother of the other Earps, is hardly mentioned in any reference. We know that he fought in the Civil War, was the first City Marshal of Garden City, Kansas, and died just a short time before Wyatt. He farmed for several years near Garden City and died in December of 1928. Some historians have theorized that Newton and Wyatt ran against each other to heighten the chances of making sure someone in the family got the job. He would later name one of his children Wyatt Clyde Earp, so there is little chance that he and Wyatt ever had animosity between them over the election.
On January 10, 1870, Wyatt Earp married Urilla Sutherland in Lamar, Missouri. The ceremony was performed by Wyatt's father, Nicholas. Sometime that same year, Urilla died. How Urilla died is another small mystery in the life of Wyatt Earp. At least two references state that Urilla died in childbirth. Bob Boze Bell notes the same on page 19 of his book, "The Illustrated Life and Times of Wyatt Earp". But in Lake's 1931 book, "Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal", he notes very briefly on page 29 that Urilla died in a Typhoid epidemic. In the 1994 A&E Network documentary, "Wyatt Earp, Justice at the OK Corral", Doctor Paul A. Hutton, Professor, University of New Mexico, echoes the same cause of a death. One might assume that complications of Typhoid caused Urilla to die in childbirth. Unless some author or researcher is able to locate a death certificate for Urilla Earp, the official cause of death may never be known.
Urilla Earp's Gravesite, Courtesy of Tom Laepple
Wyatt's further life in Lamar is another who-done-it. Wyatt's cousin Everitt, several times, made comments in his later years suggesting that Wyatt had a shady past in Lamar. He is the one who claimed that after Urilla's death, the Earp brothers and the Sutherland brothers and some of their friends got into a street fight. Everitt Earp, 1954 (10)The hint being that the Sutherland family blamed Wyatt for Urilla's death. Some have theorized that this might be evidence that Wyatt got Urilla pregnant before their marriage and could be the reason why the Sutherland's didn't approve of him. Everitt goes on to state that Lake's book "Frontier Marshal", left out important aspects of Wyatt's life in Lamar, and for "good reason" and that Wyatt had reason to claim he never lived there. He never explained what he meant. Wyatt's other cousin George, also from Lamar, claimed that Wyatt sent him a letter in later years asking him not to say anything to biographers who might come to him looking for information about Wyatt's life in Lamar. (10) Recent evidence has been brought to my attention by Tombstone historian and author Steve Gatto. The following accounts are excerpts from his page, which may shed new light onto the life of Wyatt in Lamar: "On March 14, 1871, Barton County filed a suit against Wyatt Earp and his sureties for $200. The lawsuit was based on the allegation that Wyatt Earp, while Constable for Lamar, had collected fees for licenses for the town. The proceeds of these fees were supposed to be used to support the school fund. However, the county alleged that Wyatt had never turned over the money that he had collected." Another allegation against Wyatt was as follows: "On March 31, 1871, a second lawsuit was filed aginst Wyatt Earp by a man named James Cromwell. This suit alleged that Wyatt had falsified court documents that refered to the amount of money that he had collected from Cromwell to satisfy a judgement. Cromwell later had a mowing machine siezed by the Lamar Constable to satisfy the amount the court felt was still outstanding in the judgment. The machine was sold for $38. Cromwell in his suit claimed that the machine had a value of $75, and that Wyatt Earp and his sureities owed him this amount because Earp had falsified the court documents about the amount he had paid to satisfy the judgment against him." Wyatt could not be served with warrants to appear in court on the two allegations because he had already left town.
Many researchers have theorized that at this point, due to depression from the death of his wife and child, that Wyatt ran afoul of the law in Fort Smith, Arkansas in or about May of 1871. During that time, a "true bill" was returned by the Grand Jury of the United States Court of the Western District of Arkansas on the charge of larceny. Wyatt was charged with horse thievery in the Indian Nations. (3) See The Illustrated Life and Times of Wyatt Earp, page 19, for more details on this charge. An unknown person paid Wyatt's bail and he skipped town. His fears may have been unfounded though, for Ed Kennedy, an alleged accomplice of Earps in that theft, was found not guilty in the charge.(4) Whatever the reason for these errors in judgement, it would appear that Earp had a somewhat troubled childhood, what today might be called an "identity crisis".
Further evidence that our Wyatt was not perfect, several items about Wyatt were found in a Peoria, Illinois newspaper by reader David Langenberg. I am reprinting a couple of the items here:
George Randall, Wyatt Earp and Morgan Earp, three men arrested at the Haspel bagnio on Hamilton street, on Saturday evening last, were brought before Justice Cunningham, yesterday, to answer to a charge of being found in a house of ill fame, and took a change of venue to Justice Rounseville. This is Mr. Rounseville’s first police case, though he has already done a good business in civil cases. The woman, Minnie Randall, arrested with the above named men, was not prosecuted, but used as a witness, and her evidence was conclusive. The men were fined $20 each and costs. This is the third time that the above named George Randall has been arrested and fined on a similar charge, and we may conclude, therefore, that George is a "regular hard one." (Peoria Daily Transcript, 27 February 1872, p. 4, col. 3, "Police News.")
Further: Yesterday was a gala-day as to the number of criminals at the police court. The inhabitants of the Beardstown gunboat was up for trial and were fined as follows: Wyatt Earp (an old offender) $44.00 [The boat seems to have been a nautical bordello.] (Peoria Daily Transcript, 10 September 1872, p. 4, col. 3, "Police News.")
Shortly thereafter Wyatt tried his hand at Buffalo hunting. It was during this time that Wyatt Earp probably met a younger and impressionable Bat Masterson. They would later work together on the police force in Dodge City. Bat also learned the gambling trade from friend Wyatt. Tired of Buffalo hunting, Wyatt moved on to the cattle towns of Kansas.
One of the more troubling events to try to confirm in Wyatt's early life is whether he was really a police officer in Ellsworth, Kansas. According to Stuart Lake, Earp was offered a job with the Ellsworth Police Force in the early 1870's. Reportedly Earp took the job for a short time and succeeded in disarming a famous and dangerous gunfighter, Ben Thompson. Some have dismissed this story completely. While it remains to be conclusively proven, there does remain some evidence that Earp may indeed have been an officer in Ellsworth. Several people remembered him being in Ellsworth, and Thompson would reportedly tell Bat Masterson in later years that he didn't hold the incident against Wyatt.(12)
In 1875 Wyatt moved to Wichita, Kansas, then a lawless cattle town.(Roger Myers of Lewis, KS recently pointed out that Wyatt could have been in Wichita as early as Oct. of 1874, citing a newspaper article from the Wichita Eagle about Wyatt, which was published in the Miller and Snell book "Great Gunfighters of the Kansas Cowtowns") Wyatt used some political connections to get appointed as a city policeman. (5) Wyatt gained local notoriety and respect as a Wichita police officer. While some debunkers such as Ed Bartholomew in "Wyatt Earp, The Man and the Myth", claim that Wyatt was generally hated and despised by most townspeople, newspapers of the time seem to paint a much different picture of how the public perceived Wyatt. "Wyatt Earp is an excellent officer, who's conduct has been exceptional." Wichita Weekly Beacon 1875 (5) When a suspected horse thief tries to bolt while Wyatt is questioning him, the Beacon reported that Wyatt "fired one shot across the poop deck to bring him to, to use a naughty-cal phrase and just as he did so, the man cast anchor near a clothes line, hauled down his colors and surrendered without firing a gun."(6) Another article from Wichita noted that Wyatt earned further respect from the town when he found a drunk passed out of the street with $500.00 in cash on him. The Weekly Beacon noted that Wyatt didn't take his money and sent the happy man on his way after he had sobered up. Further disproving Bartholomew's theory that Wyatt Earp was a hated and despised man in the town's in which he was a police officer, a letter from Wichita, Kansas was sent to Judge Wells Spicer in Tombstone in support of Wyatt while he was hearing the case over the OK Corral shootout: "We, the undersigned citizens of Wichita are well acquainted with Wyatt S. Earp and were intimately acquainted with him while he was on the Police Force here...We further certify that said Wyatt S. Earp was a good and efficient officer, and was well known for his honesty and integrity, that his character while here was of the best, and that no fault was ever found with him as an officer or as a man." (7)
Wyatt Earp was only in Wichita a short time. While he seemed to be a capable officer, he angered some of the town fathers when he got in a fist fight with a man who was running against his boss and friend, Marshal Mike Meagher. He was summarily discharged by the City of Wichita. Meagher ended up winning the election anyway. (6)
In 1876, Earp had moved on to Dodge City, Kansas and was hired on the Police Force there. This is the only instance where I have noted that brother James Earp is supposed to have worked in law enforcement. It is claimed that he was a Deputy Sheriff at this time under Sheriff Charlie Basset of Ford County. (8) It is more likely that the documentary where I found this information was referring to Morgan. Morgan was known to work for Sheriff Basset even before Wyatt became a police officer. It is in Dodge City where Wyatt solidifies his friendship with Bat Masterson, future Sheriff of Ford County, and a former dentist turned gambler and killer, John Henry "Doc" Holliday. It is also believed that this is where Wyatt met Celia Ann Blaylock, called "Mattie". Wyatt continues to build his reputation as a lawman in Dodge City and it is here that historians speculate Wyatt slowly started to make a name for himself across the West as being a fearless and brave police officer. (8) Officers like Masterson and Earp earned reputations as being more apt to "buffalo" someone alongside the head with their pistols then to get into a shoot-out. This was a practice that Wyatt Earp refined in those early days.
While most of the stories about Wyatt Earp's life in Dodge are made up of Hollywood bravado, he was involved in at least one known killing there. Wyatt shot cowboy George Hoy, who would later die of gangrene from the wound, after the latter came riding into town and starting "shooting the place up". Some would claim that Hoy was attempting to kill Earp, but this has never been substantiated. During this time came the notorious Clay Allison incident. Allison was an infamous gunman, known as one of the most dangerous gun-throwers of his time. (13)Earp would claim that Allison had been sent to Dodge to run him out of town since, reportedly, George Hoy was a friend of his. Like the Ellsworth story, there is circumstancial evidence this event may have taken place. Earp had heard that Allison was looking for him, and they literally ran into each other as Wyatt was walking out of a saloon. There was no tense shoot-out or stare-down in the middle of the street. Allison most likely backed down from Earp when he realized that Bat Masterson was standing nearby with a shotgun pointed at him.(14)
While Wyatt was making his name as a lawman in Dodge, he was making an even bigger name for himself as a gambler, a trade that would be his primary income for the rest of his life. His close friend Bat Masterson probably refined his own gambling trade by watching Wyatt, who was known to be slick with the cards and not above cheating. Gambling was somewhat of a respectable profession in those days, and many people knew that professional gamblers were not above giving themselves the upper hand through deception. Cheating, if done with finesse, was considered part of the game. (11)
When the cattle season ends, Wyatt and brother Morgan leave Dodge to go to the Black Hills and take part in the Gold Rush and also to spend some time in Fort Griffin, Texas. During his absence, City Marshal Ed Masterson is murdered in Dodge City. (Brother Bat has recently won the election of Sheriff over Larry Deger. Ed had replaced Deger when he was dismissed as City Marshal on December 4, 1877.) 1878 finds Wyatt back in Dodge working as a police officer during another cattle drive. The reason for this brief absence was probably best explained by the A&E Network's Documentary, "Wyatt Earp, Justice at the OK Corral". Dr. Paul Hutton notes that in the days of Wyatt Earp, being a police officer in a cattle town was highly seasonal. When the cattle weren't running, things were very slow. This is probably why Wyatt and Morgan took time to go try to make some money digging gold while the cattle season was down. When Wyatt returned to Dodge in 1878, the newspapers were singing his praises immediately. When the Dodge City Times heard that Wyatt was back in town, they reported, "Wyatt Earp, who was on our police force last summer, is in town again. We hope that he will accept a position on the force once more. He had a quiet way of taking the most desperate characters into custody which invariably gave one the impression that the city was able to enforce or mandate and preserve her dignity. It wasn't considered policy to draw a gun on Wyatt unless you got the drop and meant to burn powder without any preliminary talk." The Dodge City Times (9) "Wyatt Earp, the most efficient officer this town has ever known has just returned from Texas. He was immediately reappointed Marshal by our city dads, much to their credit." Ford County Globe, 1878 (8) Contrary to popular belief, Wyatt was never the Marshal of Dodge City, although in his later years he made the claim, as well as did newspapers of the time refer to him as "Marshal". No evidence has ever been found of Wyatt being the Marshal in Dodge City. Some authors have explained this confusion by noting that in that time period, the word "Marshal" was used very loosely.
Wyatt Earp was earning sometimes grudging respect as a law officer in the Kansas cattle towns, despite stepping on a few toes along the way. He would (and several times did) throw very prominent city officials into jail whom he suspected of breaking the law. Your average police officer today who valued his job wouldn't think of doing such a thing. Political savvy, needless to say, was not his strong suit. The strange relationship and respect between the townspeople and the lawmen like Earp might have best been explained by author Casey Tefertiller, "He (Earp) may have spent much of his time at the gambling tables, but that was expected since his job was to protect the business...He was no plaster saint with a spotless record, but he was the kind of man the citizenry wanted walking in front of the procession during dangerous times. Men like Earp were also the men whom the "good" citizens wanted out of town during peaceful times. Earp seemed most at home with the gambling crowd, surrounded by prostitutes, with men whose morals would not meet high standards..."(15)
As is the Earp family tradition, Wyatt is growing restless again. In 1879, he leaves Dodge City with Morgan and Doc and spends a short time in Las Vegas, New Mexico. From there they move on to Prescott, Arizona where Virgil is living. It is at this point that a plan is hatched to move to a booming town where silver has been found, Tombstone. (8)