Iowa I Opener: Wyatt Earp

Earp family home, 1861-1864

Just like Buffalo Bill, who was born in Iowa, another giant of the Wild West, Wyatt Earp, has ties to the Hawkeye State. He was born in Monmouth, Illinois in 1848. The Earps moved to a farm near Pella, Iowa a year later. They moved back to Monmouth in 1856, where Earp's father Nicholas served as a police constable, and then back to Pella in 1861. They lived in the house on the left, which is now part of the Pella Historical Village, until 1864. You will more about the village in my next post. Next the family moved to California, then to Missouri, where Nicholas again returned to police work, and Wyatt succeeded him in 1869, after his father became a justice of the peace.

Like many figures of the Old West, it's difficult to authenticate the facts of his life. But I'm going to try to tell his story anyway.

Earp also served as a lawman in Wichita, Dodge City, and of course Tombstone, Arizona, where he and his brothers Virgil and Morgan, joined by Doc Holliday, faced the Clanton-McLaury gang at the Gunfight at O.K. Corral. Virgil was an assistant marshall, he deputized Wyatt and Holliday just before the shootout--which could easily be classified as a skirmish in a feud. When it was over, three of the five Clanton-McClaury gang were dead. The Earp faction had four members, none were killed. Wyatt was the only participant who escaped the battle unscathed.

Wyatt Earp

Wyatt participated in many business ventures in his long life, including mining, gambling dens, saloons, and even a brothel.

In the 1920s, Earp lived in southern California, where he met studio hand and fellow Iowan Duke Morrison, who would become famous as actor John Wayne. He also befriended two of the biggest Western stars of the silent era, William S. Hart and Tom Mix, both men served as pallbearers at his funeral.

Click here to read letters Earp wrote to Hart.

In the 1988 movie Sunset, Mix teams up with Earp to solve a murder case at the 1929 Academy Awards. I guess they held them early back then, Earp died in January of that year.

Wayne supposedly told actor Hugh O'Brian, who portrayed the title character in the 1950s television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, that he based his screen persona on Earp.

Next: Pella

Related posts:

• Ronald Reagan Trail: Wyatt Earp
• August 2, 1876: Dead man's hand and the shooting of Wild Bill Hickok

Earlier posts:

• Postville and Agriprocessors
• Elk Horn and its Danish windmill
• Danish Immigrant Museum
• Omaha's Mormon Trail Center
• Loess Hills
• Jesse James' first train robbery
• A Madison County bridge and some Cold Turkey
• John Wayne's birthplace
• Grinnell's Louis Sullivan Jewel Box
• Amana Refrigeration
• Amana cemeteries
• Amana Millrace and the woolen mill
• Amana Colonies overview
• Anamosa State Penitentiary Cemetery
• More about Stone City and Grant Wood
• Stone City and Grant Wood
• Where North Avenue ends
• Field of Dreams
• Guttenberg and its pool
• A final look at Effigy Mounds National Monument
• More Effigy Mounds
• Effigy Mounds National Monument
• Freedom Rock and Veterans Day
• Pikes Peak
• Buffalo Bill