Wyatt Earp example essay topic

Wyatt Earp is best known as the fearless frontier lawman of Wichita and Dodge City, Kansas, and as principal survivor of the Gunfight at the OK Corral. But the Marshall Earp of legend accounted for only about 5 years of Wyatt's long and eventful life. Wyatt spent most of his years traveling and living in the deserts of the Southwest with his four brothers Virgil, Morgan, James and Warren, as well as his wife Josie. His lifelong passion for mining, gambling and sports led him from one boomtown to another across the span of the western frontier and into the 20th century. Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born on March 19, 1848 in Monmouth, Illinois.

His father Nicholas was a lawyer who preferred a life of farming. From an early age, Wyatt learned from his father to stand up for what was right. When Wyatt was two years old, the family moved to Iowa. In 1861, the Civil War broke out, and Wyatt's father and three older brothers joined the Union Army. Soon after, Wyatt ran away to enlist, but his father caught him and sent him back home.

In 1864, Nicholas left the army, and the family set out for the West. It took seven months to travel from Iowa to California. The Earps settled in San Bernardino, where Nicholas bought a ranch. It was assumed that Wyatt would study to be a lawyer, but instead he became a stagecoach driver.

He traveled to Los Angeles and Prescott, Arizona. In 1868, Wyatt went to work for the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming, where he was able to save some money. "Wyatt was a dependable fellow and not afraid of work". Frank Binkley, freights man 1 In 1870, he traveled to Illinois, then to Oklahoma and Kansas City. Wyatt married in 1870, but after the sudden death of his new bride, he drifted the Indian Territory working as a buffalo hunter and stagecoach driver. In 1873, Wyatt found himself in Ellsworth, Kansas.

After witnessing the murder of the local sheriff, Wyatt was given the job by the mayor. However, he turned his badge in after the first day when the judge released his prisoner. "As we go to press, Hell is in session at Ellsworth". Kansas State News, 1873 2 In 1874, Wyatt was named deputy marshal of Wichita, Kansas. After arresting a rich Texan named Abel "Shanghai" Pierce, as well as several of Pierce's men, Wyatt made many enemies. Forty Texan cowboys approached the town, and Wyatt met them on the bridge.

He stood up to a known killer named Manner Clements, and the cowboys left. It was the last time Wichita experienced such violence In 1876, he moved to Dodge City, Kansas where he became a faro dealer at the famous Long Branch Saloon. It was here he met and became lifelong friends with Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday. "Wyatt was more intelligent than the majority of his associates, which probably did not help them to understand him".

Bat Masterson, lawman 3 "Doc had but three redeeming traits. One was his courage, The second was his sterling loyalty, The third was his affection for Wyatt Earp". Bat Masterson, lawman 4 Mayor Hoover requested the services of Wyatt. Wyatt agreed to become marshal, and he hired his brother Morgan as his deputy. Wyatt's first act was to draw a line across the town and forbid guns, except those carried by lawmen, north of that line.

Farmers and cowboys had to check their weapons before entering the town. Wyatt and his men made many arrests each day. "Dodge boomed with a roar that split the nation's ears and still echoes in her memory". Stuart Lake, author 5 He was even given a special Colt six-gun with a 12-inch barrel from writer Ned Buntline.

After eight months, Wyatt had tamed Dodge City, and he began to get restless. He traveled to Deadwood City in the Dakotas, where he sold wood to the miners. Wyatt pocketed more than $5,000, and then headed to Cheyenne, Wyoming. In Cheyenne, a telegram was waiting that asked him to return to Dodge City.

He was again named marshal, and his brothers Virgil and Morgan worked as his deputies. Several Texan cowboys tried to kill Wyatt, but they were not successful. Leaving Dodge City with his second wife in 1878, Wyatt traveled to New Mexico and California, working for a time as a Wells Fargo agent. In 1879 he assembled with his brothers and their wives in the new silver mining town of Tombstone, Arizona. "The grimly humorous phrase about our town was that Tombstone had 'a man for breakfast every morning.

' " Josephine Sara Marcus, actress 6 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 became town marshal, while Morgan took a job with the police department. It was here that Wyatt met his third wife Josie (Josephine Marcus Earp), who remained with him until his death. Wyatt became a deputy U.S. marshal. John Behan was the sheriff, but Wyatt did not trust.

Behan had ties to many outlaws in the region, and he allowed men that Wyatt arrested to escape from jail. When a gang robbed the Bisbee stagecoach, Wyatt arrested a popular outlaw named Frank Stilwell. After Stilwell was released on bail, a fight between Stilwell's friend Tom McLaury and Morgan Earp was proposed. The fight was refused by Morgan, but a fierce rivalry had developed. On October 26, 1881, a feud that had developed between the Earp brothers and a gang led by Ike Clanton culminated in the most celebrated gunfight in western folklore, the Gunfight at the OK Corral. The Mclaury and Clanton met near the OK Corral.

The Earps heard that they wanted to fight and realized a showdown was inevitable. Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan Earp, along with Doc Holliday headed to the intersection of Third Street and Fremont Street, which was less than a block from OK Corral. The shooting started when Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury cocked their pistols. The battle lasted less than a minute, and Tom and Frank McLaury, as well as Billy Clanton, were killed. "For my handling of the situation at Tombstone, I have no regrets. Were it to be done again, I would do it exactly as I did it at the time".

Wyatt Earp, lawman 7 The Earps and Doc Holliday were arrested for murder by Sheriff Behan. After a month-long trial, it was determined they acted within the law. In March 1882, Ike Clanton attempted to kill Wyatt and Morgan while they were playing pool. Morgan was killed, and Wyatt vowed revenge. He quickly found and killed Frank Stilwell, and then headed out to find the remaining killers. However, Wyatt was being tracked by Sheriff Behan, who wanted to arrest him.

After being accused of these murders, Wyatt, Josie and Doc Holliday fled Arizona to Colorado. and made money playing cards while making the rounds of western mining camps over the next few years. They turned up in Coeur d' Alene, Idaho and in 1886, settled briefly in booming San Diego, where Wyatt gambled and invested in real estate and saloons. From San Diego, Wyatt moved to San Jose and started a race horse farm. In 1897 Wyatt and Josie headed for Nome Alaska where they operated a saloon during the height of the Alaska Gold Rush. They returned to the states in 1901 with an estimated $80,000 and immediately headed for the gold strike in Tonopah, Nevada, where his saloon, gambling and mining interests once again proved profitable. Thereafter, Wyatt took up prospecting in earnest, staking claims just outside Death Valley and elsewhere in the Mojave Desert.

In 1906 he discovered several veins that contained gold and copper near Vidal, California on the Colorado River and filed numerous claims there at the base of the Whipple Mountains. Wyatt spent the winters of his final years working these claims in the Mojave Desert and living with Josie in their Vidal cottage. He and Josie summered in Los Angeles, where they befriended early Hollywood actors and lived off real estate and mining investments. On Jan. 13, 1929 Wyatt Earp died in Los Angeles at the age of 80. Cowboy actors Tom Mix and William S. Hart were among his pallbearers. Wyatt's cremated ashes were buried in Josie's family plot in Colm a, California, just south of San Francisco.

When Josie died in 1944 at the age of 75, she was buried there beside him. Among his enduring legacies as frontiersman, lawman, gambler and prospector, a post office near his Mojave Desert mining claims along the Colorado River on Route 62 bears the name -- "Earp, California 92242". 1. Ed Bartholomew, Wyatt Earp, 1848 to 1880, the Untold Story. Toyahvale, Texas: Frontier Book Co., 1963.25. 2.

Bartholomew, 39.3. Bartholomew, 72 4. Bartholomew, 127.5. Bartholomew, 168 6. Ed Bartholomew, Wyatt Earp, 1879 to 1882, the Untold Story.

Toyahvale, Texas: Frontier Book Co., 1964.81. 7. Bartholomew, 142.

Bibliography

Bartholomew, Ed Wyatt Earp, 1848 to 1880, the Untold Story.
Toyahvale, Texas: Frontier Book Co., 1963.
Bartholomew, Ed Wyatt Earp, 1879 to 1882, the Untold Story.
Toyahvale, Texas: Frontier Book Co., 1964.