The Truth About Wyatt Earp's Shady Past

When you think about sheriffs in the old west, the long arm of the law dispensing righteous justice and protecting the innocent, the figure that likely comes to mind immediately is Wyatt Earp. Famous for the shootout at the O.K. Corral, Earp has been immortalized as the prototype western lawman for generations, lionized in books, films, and TV shows.

But behind that paragon of virtue it turns out that the real Wyatt Earp actually had a bit of a shady past.

Born in 1848, Earp was too young to fight in the Civil War, and he was not particularly well educated, Earp left the family farm in search of fortune and the American dream. And he almost found it. After getting work as a teamster, Earp was involved in his first shooting in 1869, at a brothel in Illinois - according to A Wyatt Earp Anthology it was self defense. Within a year, Earp seemingly had everything he wanted: newly married, Earp was named constable of Lamar, Missouri, and he and his wife were expecting their first child.

Then tragedy struck. Earp's pregnant wife, Urilla, suddenly died of typhoid fever. Faced with the loss of his family, Earp became untethered. In 1871, he was accused of mishandling county funds and was fired. He turned to horse theft and was jailed, but he escaped and became an enforcer at a brothel. It became a lifestyle, and a dangerous one; in 1874, he was arrested again, this time for fighting in Wichita, Kansas.

It wouldn't be the last time. Though he was soon hired as a policeman and earned praise for his integrity Earp also continued to run afoul of the law himself. He was arrested again, this time in Dodge City, Kansas, for slapping a woman. Then, in 1878, he was arrested in Fort Worth, Texas, again for fighting. Each time he returned to law enforcement. Most famously, he was tried and acquitted for murder after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881.

He then went through a series of odd jobs, from lawman to miner to boxing judge, the last of which proved disastrous. In 1896, he refereed the heavyweight title between Bob Fitzsimmons and Tom Sharkey, and controversially ruled a low blow, awarding the championship to Sharkey - who was the clear underdog of the match. It was later revealed that the match had been rigged; though it was unclear if Earp was part of the scam or had been duped, he was called a cheat and a fraud in the national press.

In fact, when Earp died in 1929, his role in the fixed boxing match received as much attention in his obituary as the fight at the O.K. Corral. So how did we get from there to here, where all his shortcomings are forgotten, and instead he's become a legend of the old west?

Well, two years after Earp's death, author Stuart Lake published Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshall, a highly fictionalized account of Earp's life. Earp also had friends in Hollywood, who soon began pushing this heroic version of Earp's narrative in film and on television - and they've never stopped, with films like Tombstone and Wyatt Earp cementing his place in the public consciousness. Whether or not this idealized vision of Earp actually matches up to that of the man is almost beside the point. Despite a tragic life and run-ins both as the law and with the law, Wyatt Earp's reputation as a man devoted to justice is more or less set in stone — even if it is a tombstone.

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