The gunfight in Tombstone lasted only 30 seconds, but it ended up defining Earp for the rest of his life. They stopped in Albuquerque, New Mexico where they met up with Earp's friend Deputy U.S. Marshal Bat Masterson. Masterson went with them to
Trinidad, Colorado, where he opened a faro game in a saloon and later became marshal. Earp dealt faro at Masterson's saloon for several weeks, then left for
Gunnison, Colorado in May 1882 with McMaster, Vermillion, and Warren Earp. The Earps and Texas Jack set up camp on the outskirts of Gunnison, where they remained quietly at first, rarely going into town for supplies. They reportedly pulled a "gold brick scam" in Gunnison on a German visitor named Ritchie by trying to sell him gold-painted rocks for $2,000. Holliday and Earp met again in June 1882 in Gunnison after Earp intervened to keep his friend from being arrested on murder charges which they all had pending against them for killing Frank Stillwell in Tucson. Earp saw Holliday for a final time in the late winter of 1886, where they met in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel. Josephine Marcus described the skeletal Holliday as having a continuous cough and standing on "unsteady legs". The
San Diego Union printed a report from the
San Francisco Call on July 9, 1882, that Virgil Earp was in San Francisco receiving treatment for his shattered arm, and that Wyatt was expected to arrive from Colorado that day. Following Wyatt's return to San Francisco, Josephine began using the name "Josephine Earp". It was the first of many mining camps and boomtowns in which they lived. He still owned a house in Tombstone with his former common-law wife, Mattie, who had waited for him in Colton, where his parents and Virgil were living. ", June 10, 1883. Standing: William H. Harris, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, William F. Petillon. Seated:
Charlie Bassett, Wyatt Earp, Michael Francis "Frank" McLean, and Cornelius "Neil" Brown Earp's friend Luke Short was part-owner of the Long Branch saloon in Dodge City, but the mayor tried to run him out of business and out of town during the
Dodge City War. Short appealed to Masterson, and Masterson contacted Earp on May 31, 1883. Earp and Josephine went with Masterson, Johnny Millsap,
Shotgun John Collins, Texas Jack Vermillion, and Johnny Green to Dodge City to help Short, Earp joined the crowd looking for gold in the
Murray-Eagle mining district, and they paid $2,250 for a diameter white circus in which they opened a dance hall and saloon called The White Elephant. Earp speculated in San Diego's booming real estate market, They offered 21 games, including faro, blackjack, poker, keno,
pedro, and
monte. He also owned the Oyster Bar located in the first granite-faced building in San Diego, the four-story Louis Bank Building at 835 5th Avenue, one of the more popular saloons in the
Stingaree district. and each prostitute was required to dress in matching garments. Earp had a long-standing interest in boxing and horse racing, and he refereed boxing matches in San Diego, Tijuana, and San Bernardino. The boom came to an end as rapidly as it had started, and the population of San Diego fell from a high of 40,000 in 1885 when Earp arrived to only 16,000 in 1890. In the 1920s, Earp gave Josephine signed legal papers and filing fees for a claim for an oil lease in Kern County, California. She gambled away the filing fees and lied to him about what happened to the lease, which later proved valuable. He distrusted her ability to manage her finances and made an arrangement with her sister Henrietta Lenhardt. He put oil leases in Henrietta's name with the agreement that the proceeds would benefit Josephine after his death. In February 1926, the oil well was completed and was producing 150 barrels a day, but Henrietta's three children refused to keep the agreement after their mother's death and kept the royalties to themselves. Josephine sued her sister's estate in an attempt to collect the royalties. Josephine later developed a reputation as a shrew who made life difficult for Earp. She frequently griped about his lack of work and financial success and even his character and personality, and he often went on long walks to get away from her. He was furious about her gambling habit, during which she lost considerable sums of money; each may have engaged in extramarital affairs. Josephine could also be controlling, Fitzsimmons dominated Sharkey throughout the fight, and he hit Sharkey with his famed "solar plexus punch" in the eighth round, an uppercut under the heart that could render a man temporarily helpless. Then, at Fitzsimmons' next punch, Sharkey dropped, clutched his groin, and rolled on the canvas screaming foul. It was widely believed that no foul had occurred and that Earp had bet on Sharkey. Newspapers across the United States republished the stories from the San Francisco papers and looked for local angles. On December 14, 1896, the
San Francisco Call quoted a story from the
New York Journal by Alfred H. Lewis, who accused the Earp brothers of being "stage robbers", Stories about the fight and Earp's contested decision were distributed nationwide to a public that knew little of Wyatt Earp prior to that time.
Klondike Gold Rush While in Yuma, Wyatt heard of the gold rush in the
Alaska Yukon. On August 5, 1897, Wyatt and Sadie left for San Francisco. Earp was reported to have secured the backing of a syndicate of sporting men to open a gambling house there. They arrived in
Dawson in the
Yukon on late September, where Wyatt planned to open a faro game. Wyatt and Josephine spent only a month in Dawson. When they returned north, Wyatt was offered a job as the marshal in
Wrangell, Alaska, but he served for only ten days. Sadie learned she was pregnant again, and they returned to San Francisco on October 11 aboard the steamship
City of Seattle. But Sadie miscarried again. The Earps spent the winter in Wrangell before setting out in the spring for Dawson on board the
Governor Pingree via the Yukon River. By the time they reached
Rampart on the Yukon River, freeze-up had set in. The Earps rented a cabin from
Rex Beach for $100 a month and spent the winter of 1898–1899 there. In 1898, they reached Rampart before the Yukon River froze over for the winter. Rampart was a friendly place, but far from the real action. They left with the spring thaw and headed for
St. Michael, on the
Norton Sound, a major gateway to the Alaskan interior via the
Yukon River. Wyatt managed a small store during the spring of 1899, selling beer and cigars for the
Alaska Commercial Company. But Wyatt's friend
Tex Rickard sent him a number of letters belittling Wyatt's steady but small income in St. Michael as "chickenfeed" and persuaded him to relocate to Nome. The second floor had 12 "clubrooms" decorated with fine mirrors, thick carpets, draperies, and sideboards. Trading on Earp's name, the Dexter was a success. It was used for a variety of purposes because it was so large: with ceilings. Most members of law enforcement were corrupt or paid no-shows. On July 6, 1900, Wyatt's brother Warren was shot and killed in a saloon in
Willcox, Arizona. Wyatt learned about his death soon after, and although some modern researchers believe he went to Arizona to avenge his brother's death, the distance and time required to make the trip made it unlikely, and no contemporary evidence has been found to support that theory.
Saloon ownership and gambling Earp arrived in Seattle with a plan to open a saloon and gambling room. On November 25, 1899, the
Seattle Star described him as "a man of great reputation among the toughs and criminals, inasmuch as he formerly walked the streets of a rough frontier mining town with big pistols stuck in his belt, spurs on his boots, and a devil-may-care expression upon his official face". The
Seattle Daily Times was less full of praise, announcing in a very small article that he had a reputation in Arizona as a "bad man", which in that era was synonymous with "villain" and "desperado". He faced considerable opposition to his plan from
John Considine, who controlled all three gaming operations in town. Although gambling was illegal, Considine had worked out an agreement with Police Chief C. S. Reed. Earp partnered with an established local gambler named Thomas Urguhart, and they opened the Union Club saloon and gambling operation in Seattle's
Pioneer Square. The
Seattle Star noted two weeks later that Earp's saloon was developing a large following. Considine unsuccessfully tried to intimidate Earp, but his saloon continued to prosper. After the city failed to act, on March 23, 1900, the Washington state attorney general filed charges against several gamblers, including Earp and his partner. The club's furnishings were confiscated and burned. The Earps returned briefly to San Francisco in April 1900, but soon returned to Seattle. Newspapers in Seattle and San Francisco falsely reported on Wyatt's wealth, which prompted a stampede to Nome to seek similar riches. Nome was advertised as an "exotic summer destination" and four ships a day left Seattle with passengers infected with "gold fever". On June 14, 1900, Wyatt and Sadie boarded the steamer SS
Alliance in Seattle, bound for Nome. in December 1901 after returning from Alaska , . The man in the center is believed to be Wyatt Earp, and the woman on the left is often identified as
Josephine Earp In November 1901, at age 40, Sadie got pregnant again, and she and Wyatt decided to leave Alaska. They sold their interest in the Dexter to their partner, Charlie Hoxie. They had an estimated , a relative fortune. Sadie miscarried and lost the baby. Three months later, in February 1902, they arrived in
Tonopah, Nevada, known as the "Queen of the Silver Camps", where silver and gold had been discovered in 1900. When they arrived, they had to endure a two-week blizzard. They soon learned unemployment was high, and many residents had already moved on. Wyatt and Josie persevered, and within a few months, he and Al Martin opened the Northern Saloon. Earp hauled ore and supplies for the
Tonopah Mining Company to the
Carson and Colorado Railroad depots at Sodaville and Candelaria. He was briefly appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal in Tonopah under Marshal J.F. Emmitt, but his duties were limited to serving papers to defendants in federal court cases. Disappointed with future prospects in Tonopah, they sold their interests in the summer of 1903. They prospected in the desert around Silver Peak, Esmeralda County, and wintered in Los Angeles. They staked three claims in the
Palmetto Mountains but never found anything of value. They visited his brother Virgil and his wife in 1905 in
Goldfield, Nevada, where Virgil had become an Esmeralda County deputy sheriff. He briefly hired Wyatt as a
pit boss. Wyatt also staked
mining claims just outside
Death Valley and elsewhere in the
Mojave Desert. In 1906 he discovered several deposits of gold and copper in the
Whipple Mountains near the
Sonoran Desert town of
Vidal, California, on the Colorado River and filed more than 100 mining claims His saloon, oil, and copper mining interests produced some income for a period. While in Los Angeles, they lived in at least nine small Los Angeles rentals as early as 1885 and as late as 1929, mainly during the summer. On July 23, 1911, Earp was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with attempting to fleece J. Y. Peterson, a realty broker, in a fake faro game. Since money had not changed hands, the charge against Earp was reduced to vagrancy, and he was released on $500 bail. 's movie,
The Half-Breed, starring
Douglas Fairbanks. In his autobiography, Dwan recalled, "As was the custom in those days, he [Earp] was invited to join the party and mingle with our background action." In 1916, Earp went with his friend
Jack London, whom he knew from Nome, to visit the set of former cowboy, sailor, and movie actor-turned-film director
Raoul Walsh, who was shooting at the studio of
Mutual Film conglomerate in
Edendale, California. Walsh took the two men to dinner at Al Levy's Cafe on Main and Third Street. During the meal, the highest paid entertainer in the world,
Charlie Chaplin, dropped by to greet Wyatt Earp. Chaplin was impressed by both men, but particularly the former Tombstone marshal. ==Death==