Six years later, Holliday died of tuberculosis at age 36 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Earp arrived in the silver-mining boom town of Tombstone, Arizona, in , and eventually found periodic work as a law officer. The shootout, thought to have lasted less than a minute, left three people dead: Frank and Tom McLaury and Billy Clanton. Afterward, the Earps and Holliday were arrested for murder. In late November , they were exonerated in court.
A month later, gunmen tried to murder Virgil Earp outside a Tombstone saloon; he survived but sustained serious injuries to one arm. Exacting revenge, Wyatt and his posse murdered several cowboys.
After leaving Tombstone in , Earp moved around the West, laying low and supporting himself through gambling. In California, Earp trained racehorses and organized and promoted prizefights. In , he moved to Dodge City, Kansas where he became a faro dealer at the at the famous Long Branch Saloon and assistant marshal. It was here he met and became lifelong friends with Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday, as well as establishing his reputation as a notable lawman and gambler.
The photo at top right comes from the National Archives of the United States. Left to right: Charles Bassett, W. Masterson was a close friend of Wyatt and spent much time in Tombstone before returning to Kansas in Luke Short, another friend, and part-time lawman and part-time gambler, spent time in Tombstone and left a victim in Boothill.
In he assembled with his brothers and their wives in the new silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona. Wyatt planned to establish a stage line here, but upon discovering that there were already two in town, he acquired the gambling concession at the Oriental Saloon.
His brother Virgil photo left became town marshal, while Morgan took a job with the police department. On October 26, , a feud that had developed between the Earp brothers and a gang led by Ike Clanton culminated in the most celebrated gun-fight in western folklore — the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Three of the Clanton gang were killed, while Ike and another wounded member escaped. Both Morgan and Virgil were wounded, and Virgil was later terminated as marshal for his role in the homicides.
In March Morgan Earp photo right was gunned down by unknown assassins. The adventure and the little bit of press Earp received from the job appealed to him, and eventually, he was made city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas.
But while he had reinvented himself as a lawman, the speculative spirit that had driven his father ran in Earp as well. In December , Earp joined his brothers Virgil and Morgan in Tombstone, Arizona, a booming frontier town that had only recently been erected when a speculator discovered the land there contained vast amounts of silver.
His good friend Doc Holliday , whom he'd met in Kansas, joined him. But the silver riches the Earp brothers hoped to find never came, forcing Earp begrudgingly to return to law work. In a town and a region desperate to tame the lawlessness of the cowboy culture that pervaded the frontier, Earp was a welcome sight.
In March , Earp set out to find a posse of cowboys that had robbed a Tombstone stagecoach and its driver. In an effort to close in on the outlaws, he struck a deal with a rancher named Ike Clanton, who regularly dealt with the cowboys working around Tombstone. But the partnership quickly dissolved. Clanton, paranoid that Earp would leak the details of their bargain, turned against him.
By October, Clanton was out of his mind, drunk and parading around Tombstone's saloons, bragging that he was going to kill one of the Earp men. Everything came to a head on October 26, , when the Earps, along with Holliday, met Clanton, his brother Billy, and two others, Frank McLaury and his brother, Tom, on a small lot on the edge of town near an enclosure called the O.
There, the greatest gunfight in the West's history took place. Over the course of just 30 seconds, a barrage of shots was fired, ultimately killing Billy and both of the McLaury brothers. Virgil and Morgan, as well as Holliday, all were injured. It was in Dodge City that Earp would make the acquaintance of Doc Holliday, a well-known gunman and gambler. The town was booming after a silver rush, and most of the Earp family had gathered there.
Virgil was working as the town marshal, and Wyatt began working alongside him. In March , while pursuing a group of cowboys who had robbed a stagecoach, Wyatt struck a deal with local rancher Ike Clanton, who had ties to the cowboys. Clanton soon turned against him, however, and began threatening the Earp brothers. The feud escalated, and finally exploded into violence on October 26, at the O. Ike Clanton filed murder charges against the Earp brothers and Holliday, but a judge cleared them in late November.
In December, Virgil was shot and seriously wounded by unknown attackers; the following March, Morgan was killed when unknown gunmen attacked him and Wyatt at a Tombstone saloon. On a hunt for the culprits, Wyatt and his gang killed several suspects, then decided to leave town to avoid prosecution.
After leaving Tombstone, Wyatt Earp moved around the West, eventually settling in California with Josephine Marcus, with whom he would spend the next 40 years. Over the years, he made a living by gambling, saloon-keeping, mining and real estate speculation. He also worked with a personal secretary, John H. Flood, to write his memoirs, which received a poor reception during his lifetime.
Earp died in Los Angeles in January , at the age of Lake, was published in and became a bestseller, establishing Earp as a folk hero among millions of Americans searching for inspiration and excitement during the hard times of the Great Depression.
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