Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Earp was an American lawman, gambler and saloon operator associated with several western boomtowns. The gunfight near the O.K. Corral, the Earp Vendetta Ride and his later efforts to shape his reputation made him a defining but contested figure in accounts of frontier justice.

Earp worked in law enforcement at Dodge City before moving to Tombstone, where tensions involving his brothers, Doc Holliday and the group labelled the Cowboys culminated in the 1881 gunfight near the O.K. Corral. After Morgan Earp was murdered, Wyatt led the armed pursuit remembered as the Earp Vendetta Ride. He later moved through mining and gambling ventures in the West and Alaska and spent his final years in California as his frontier reputation grew into legend.

Hourly History’s Wyatt Earp follows Earp directly from frontier law enforcement through Dodge City, Tombstone and the gunfight associated with the O.K. Corral, while also tracing the later creation of his legend. Doc Holliday approaches him through his friendship with Holliday and the violence that bound the two men together in Arizona. Josephine Earp shifts the focus to the woman who shared Wyatt’s later life and helped shape how his career was remembered. The Wild West places him in the broader culture of boomtowns, lawmen, outlaws and rapidly changing western communities that made figures such as Earp national symbols.