The heroes of Westerns, who enforced law and order in the Wild West, were not much different from the bandits they fought in life and on the screen. During the exploration of the American Wild West, the line between outlaw and lawman was extremely thin. Many adventurers had to act in one or the other hypostasis. This was the fate of Wyatt Earp, one of the most famous characters in book and movie westerns.
The future Wild West legend was born March 19, 1848, in Monmouth, Illinois, the son of farmer Nicholas Earp. Nicholas's poor home was packed with children from his two marriages. Wyatt had three older and two younger brothers, as well as two sisters. The younger Earp's lived amicably and were eager to pound all the peers in the neighborhood. Papa Nicholas was not noted for his sedentary lifestyle. He went West to California several times and returned to the East several times after going bankrupt. The family accompanied their head in a large wagon. In 1856, once more returning to Monmouth, Nicholas went to work as a constable. He guarded law and order for only three years, after which he was caught bootlegging and expelled from the service. The sentence for bootlegging was harsh: all of the Earp family's property was confiscated. The family moved to the West again.
The Civil War soon broke out, with Wyatt's three older brothers fighting on the Northern side. They were fortunate to return home, although one of them was seriously wounded. In 1864, the Earp's finally settled in California, and a year later, 17-year-old Wyatt began working as a laborer - he and his brother Virgil got jobs as stagecoach drivers.
Daddy Nicholas could not sit still, and in 1868 the Earps moved to Missouri. There the reputation of the head of the family was not known, and he took another job as a constable. A year later, he went to the promotion and began to work in the court, to protect the law instead of his father began 21-year-old Wyatt. Two months later, the young policeman had a family. Unfortunately, the marriage did not last long - just six months later, Wyatt's wife died of typhoid fever.
It could seem that Wyatt repeated the fate of his father: his service in Missouri lasted only two years and ended ignominiously. In 1871, a townsman accused the constable of embezzling money collected for school construction, and another complained that Earp had fined him on a forged receipt. The situation was exacerbated by a charge of stealing two horses. In the midst of the investigation, Wyatt chose to leave the duty station and flee to an unknown destination. Both the complaints and the horse-stealing case had to be closed due to the absence of the accused.
For the next three years the fugitive constable tried to keep a low profile. Apparently, during this time he was running a second-rate brothel in Illinois. Researchers of the biography of the great Earp managed to find several fines paid by him for “being in the house with a bad reputation.”
In 1875, Earp again decided to uphold the law. This happened in the Kansas town of Wichita. He seemed to have gotten wise. The townspeople could not be happy with the new constable, who and drunken cowboys tamed, and horse thieves caught. Soon Earp became a great authority in Wichita, and in 1876 he ran for local chief of police. His rival accused Wyatt of planning to give all the police posts to his many brothers. Earp did not tolerate the slander, and the matter ended in a fight. Wyatt emerged victorious, but was forced to leave Wichita, much to the dismay of the local population.
Earp retreated to Dodge City, Kansas, which was just going through a brief period of prosperity. With its convenient location and newly built railroad, Dodge City was the center of the cattle trade. The town was flooded with crowds of cowboys who never parted with their guns. After selling a shipment of cattle, they celebrated the good deal with drinking and shooting.
The rampant crime in Dodge City required new policemen, one of whom became Wyatt Earp. During his three years in the Kansas town, he solved several crimes, arrested several criminals and most importantly - met and became firm friends with an adventurer, gambler and dentist John “Doc” Holliday. This doctor of dubious reputation was an excellent marksman with a firearm and had saved Earp's life several times.
In 1879, through the efforts of Earp and his colleagues, crime in Dodge City declined, and Wyatt became bored. A letter from his brother Virgil in Arizona came in handy. Silver deposits had been found there, and the town of Tombstone had sprung up around the first mines. The miners were just as likely to shoot as the cowboys, and so the crime rate in Arizona skyrocketed. Virgil, appointed deputy chief of police at Tombstone, called his brother for help, and Wyatt and Doc Holliday headed southwest.
Tombstone had a permanent population of only about a thousand people. The town had a mayor, a police chief, and a sheriff, but the real power belonged to a gang whose members called themselves the Cowboys. The gang was led by Bill Brosius, nicknamed Curly. These Cowboys controlled not only the mayor, but also the local newspaper, which constantly glorified both Curly and his men. Upon arrival, Wyatt quickly assessed the situation and summoned the rest of his brothers to Tombstone. In a few months, the five Earps and Holliday, who had joined them, represented a solid force to rival the Cowboys. Wyatt first took a job with a firm that guarded the transportation of cash across the state, and then he and his younger brothers Morgan and Warren became deputy sheriffs of Tombstone. For a time there was armed neutrality between the Earps and the Cowboys, but it did not last long.
In October 1880, a drunken Bill Brosius fatally wounded the chief of police. Wyatt immediately apprehended Brocious and placed him under arrest. A bribed judge acquitted the Chief Cowboy, ruling that the fatal shot was due to a defect in his revolver. Curly was released from prison and publicly swore revenge on Earp, who had imprisoned him.
In March 1881, a mail stagecoach was robbed near Tombstone, killing the driver and a passenger. One of the raiders was apprehended on the spot, and he claimed that Doc Holliday had taken part in the robbery. Doc had an alibi, but rumors spread through Tombstone that the Earp brothers were involved in the crime. Wyatt realized that the source of slander is somewhere in the gang of Cowboys, and decided to put an end to it.
On October 26, 1881, on the main street of Tombstone, a couple of Cowboys began to insult Wyatt, after which their faces were somewhat damaged. The offended brawlers and three other bandits left town for the nearby O. C. Corral ranch, where they were overtaken by three Earp's and Holliday. There were no witnesses to the showdown. The surviving Cowboys claimed they were unarmed, although all Tombstone men knew that none of the bandits even went to bed without revolvers. Allegedly the Earp's forced their assailants to raise their hands, and then treacherously opened fire. In doing so, somehow the “unarmed” Cowboys managed to wound two of Wyatt's brothers. Be that as it may, three of the bandits were killed, two managed to escape. The funeral of the dead Cowboys was attended by practically the entire population of Tombstone. The “natives” of the town, which had sprung up only two years before, considered the Earp's “outsiders,” while the local bandits were respected.
The brothers and Doc went on trial for premeditated murder. They didn't spend much time in jail: they had to pay a huge bail of ten thousand dollars (the average monthly wage at the time was $15). The prosecutor failed to prove the charge, and the Earp's were acquitted.
Cowboys did not need proof of their enemies' guilt. On December 28, 1881, one of the bandits severely wounded Virgil Earp, whose right arm was permanently disabled. Three months later, a shot through a window killed Morgan Earp. After this, Wyatt began a vendetta of his own. First, one of the Cowboys, believed to be Morgan's direct killer, was shot. Then one of the Earp's mistakenly shot the namesake of one of the Cowboys. This further turned all of Tombstone against the brothers. A little later, Curly suddenly disappeared. The body of the main Cowboy was never found, and Wyatt later claimed to have personally killed his main enemy. Arizona authorities issued arrest warrants for all of Earp and Holliday. The brothers and Doc promptly left the inhospitable Tombstone and traveled in different directions.
Wyatt moved first to Colorado and then to California. There he married and lived, earning money by playing cards and real estate. In 1897, the 49-year-old Earp traveled to Alaska, where the gold rush was in full swing. Digging the rock in search of precious metal Wyatt did not become, preferring to trade beer and cigars. He never stayed in one place for long. The former hero of the Wild West then opened his own saloons, which quickly went bankrupt, then the old habit went to serve in the police, then he himself went to jail for drunken hooliganism. The turbulent life of Wyatt Earp ended January 13, 1929. He died in Los Angeles, leaving no heirs.
