Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) is a city policeman (assistant town marshal) in Wichita, Kansas, Dodge City, Kansas and Tombstone, Arizona.

He is also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and on one occasion a boxing referee.

He is best known for his part in the gunfight at the O.K.

Corral during which three outlaw cowboys are killed.

The 30-second gunfight defines the rest of his life.

Earp spends his early life in Iowa.

His first wife Urilla Sutherland Earp dies while pregnant less than a year after they marry.

Within the next two years, he is arrested, sued twice, escapes from jail, then is arrested three more times for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame".

He lands in the cattle boomtown of Wichita, Kansas where he becomes a deputy marshal for one year and develops a solid reputation as a lawman.

In 1876, he follows his brother James to Dodge City, Kansas where he becomes an assistant marshal.

In the winter of 1878, he goes to Texas to gamble where he meets John Henry "Doc" Holliday, whom Earp credits with saving his life.

Continually drawn to boomtowns and opportunity, Earp lefves Dodge City in 1879, and with his brothers James and Virgil, moves to Tombstone, Arizona.

The Earps buy an interest in the Vizina mine and some water rights.

There, the Earps clash with a loose federation of outlaw cowboys.

Wyatt, Virgil, and their younger brother Morgan hold various law enforcement positions that put them in conflict with Tom and Frank McLaury, and Ike and Billy Clanton, who threaten to kill the Earps.

The conflict escalates over the next year, culminating on October 26, 1881 in the gunfight at the O.K.

Corral, during which the Earps and Holliday kill three of the Cowboys.

In the next five months, Virgil is ambushed and maimed and Morgan is assassinated.

Pursuing a vendetta, Wyatt, his brother Warren, Holliday, and others chase down the Cowboys they think responsible.

After leaving Tombstone, Earp continually invests in various mining interests and saloons.

He and his third wife, in their later years, move between Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert, where the town of Earp, California is named after him.

Although his brother Virgil had far more experience as a sheriff, constable, and marshal, Wyatt, who outlived Virgil, and was made famous by a largely fictionalized biography by Stuart Lake, has been the subject of and model for a large number of films, TV shows, biographies and works of fiction.

But it is true that, unlike his brothers and his ally Doc Holliday, who participated in several gun battles with him, Wyatt was never wounded during his entire lifetime, which only contributed to his mystique.

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