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Scroll down to read "Was Wyatt Earp a Pimp?"
C. Bilicke's Cosmopolitan Hotel Arizona Star, September 25, 1879
Tombstone has a first class hotel under the supervision of C. Bilicke & Co., formerly of Florence. To meet the many wants of the traveler, the proprietor of the Cosmopolitan Hotel has spared no pains. He has fitted up a dining room with all the requirements necessary to accommodate one hundred guests, and a fine large tent with fifty beds. In a few days his hotel rooms will be built and furnished in the most comfortable style. This building will be constructed of lumber. Mr. Bilicke is a first class man and knows just how to accommodate his guests. His tables are supplied with the best the market affords and to top out-the whole business, a fine lot of cows furnish pure milk morning and night. Go to the Cosmopolitan when you visit Tombstone.
A Telephone Exchange, Tombstone Epitaph, July 22, 1882
Mr. John I. Sabin, General Manager, and John Lawrence, Superintendent of the Arizona telephone Company arrived here yesterday to make arrangements for the establishment of a telephone exchange in this city. If twenty-five subscribers are obtained the telephone will be in working order with a complete set of the most approved instruments in three weeks. half the requisite number were obtained yesterday, and there is hardly a doubt but the remainder will be found to-day. All the leading mines, banks, and business houses have already ordered the instrument, so it is merely a question of time until we shall have the handy invention in full blast. Connection will also be made with Contention, so that we can buzz the people of that burg when occasion demands. It is to be hoped the gentlemen will receive liberal encouragement, as Tombstone is too cosmopolitan a city to be without this popular late-day invention. F. Fingsbury, Manager of the Western Union Telegraph Company, will be the local agent, from whom any information concerning the enterprise can be obtained.
Wyatt Earp, Tucson Weekly, May 17, 1884
"Wyatt Earp, well known here and in Tombstone, is reported to be Wells, Fargo & Co.'s shotgun messenger in the Coeur d Alene County."
Tombstone Photographer C.S. Fly's "A Mountain View" July 17, 1890
C.S. Fly has returned from the Chiricahua Mountains where he has been for the past month planting and sowing. He has taken a ranch on the top most ridge of the mountains which he describes as being fairy-tale. (I agree) This location is over 8,000 feet above sea level and the water which in abundance, is cold almost as cold as ice water. He has planted seven acres mostly of Alfalfa, which is growing rapidly. His immense water supply will be controlled in one large lake which he will stock with Trout. The plateau is quite extensive and the soil is rich black to a depth of many feet. The highest peaks of other mountain ranges can be overlooked from this spot. The trees are immense and mostly Pine which grow very tall. Some views of the country which he has taken, are simply grand. He will return in the course of a week.
Image Courtesy of McLelland Collection
Located in center of photograph is Tombstone photographer C.S. Fly's own "OK Corral" in the Chiricahua Mtns., Arizona. Barbed wire can still be seen wrapped around some of the existing trees.
Famous Border Fort Established In Cochise County In 1870 To Be Sold By The Government
August 8, 1910 Tombstone Prospector
Has Over 22,000 Acres in Reservation. The officials of the U.S. land office at Phoenix have received instructions from the commissioner of the general land office directing the sale at auction of the old Fort Bowie military reservation, the sale to be conducted on the reservation beginning at 9 o'clock on the morning of Oct. 10. There are 23,232 acres in the reservation. The land is divided into three classes, agricultural, grazing and mineral. The area of the three classes are about equal. The agricultural and grazing lands are are to be sold in lots of not less than forty acres at not less than the appraised value, ranging from $1.25 to $2.50 an acre. The mineral land will be sold at auction, but will be disposed of under the mineral land laws. The agricultural and grazing lands are said to be of a good character and much of the former can easily be brought under cultivation. This reservation, which lies south of Bowie Station, in Cochise County, was established by presidential order in 1870 and was abandoned as a military post in 1894, though for many years before that no troops had been stationed there, that whole region being under the protection of Fort Huachuca and Camp Grant.
Old Modoc Stage To be Used In Pageant At The Fair Tombstone Epitaph, October 10, 1924 (partial)
The Old Modoc stage, battered and worn, bullet scared and cushion tattered, but still able to weather a lot of hard use after more than 49 years of idleness, will be used in the historic pageant to be given on Friday and Saturday nights of the Cochise county fair in Douglas, and is now standing in a place of honor in the Stafford and Alberts garage, having arrived in Douglas from Tucson this week, where is has been for several months. The old coach was built in 1870 and for many years did duty between Tombstone and Benson. It has seen stirring times in its day. The Earp-Clanton gang that terrorized this part of Arizona, held up the same coach and robbed the messenger and got away with $10,000 of payroll money that was enroute to Tombstone and Charleston. (Note: Arizona Historical Society has the stagecoach in their possession)
The First Press" By George C. Reeder Tombstone Epitaph, April 26, 1928
A history of the Prospector and Epitaph, brief as it must necessarily be, would not be complete without a reference to the first press every (ever) brought to Arizona and now stored in the Prospector press rooms. It is a Washington hand press, and it is the 25th, as its number shows, turned out of the Central Type Foundry of Cincinnati. This factory was established in 1851. The press came around the horn in 1858 and was brought from Guymas to Tubac, consigned to Sylvester Moury, who started the Arizonian, the pioneer paper of the territory. Moury continued the publication of the paper up to the breaking out of the civil war. He was succeeded by two printers, Jack Smith and George Smithson,, in 1861. After getting out half a dozen issues it is claimed the two latter were charged with stage robbery. Resisting arrest, Smithson was killed. Sims was afterward tried on the charge and was acquitted. He was defended by Granville Oury, subsequently delegate to Congress. Sims, by the way, was the first printer to arrive in Globe and while employed on the Silver Belt in 1878, was shot and killed in that town. The Arizonian suffered an eclipse from that time until 1867, when under the same name, W. S. Moury re-established it in Tucson. S'dney R. DeLong later secured control of the press and with it began the publication of the Tucson Citizen, the oldest surviving off spring of the famous piece of machinery, with John Wasson as editor. It was afterward owned by L.C. Hughes and the Star and Dos Republicas of the Old Pueblo utilized it for a time. In the fall of 1879 A.E. Fay and Thomas Tully, brought the old relic to Tombstone and the Nugget, the camp's first paper, was issued from it. With the introduction of modern machinery the press was placed on the superannuated list, and has enjoyed a rest for the past 30 years. Notwithstanding its long and turbulent career, the press today is in good state of preservation and with the expenditure of a little time and labor, could again be placed in a servicable condition. The press will be presented to the Arizona Pioneers Society (Tucson's Arizona Historical Society) to be preserved as an interesting relic of Arizona history.
Pioneer Of Old Tombstone Back For Visit here Tombstone Epitaph, February 23, 1928
Melvin Jones, builder of the Schieffelin Monument, and a well known monument man of Tucson, was a visitor in Tombstone last week. When Mr. came into Arizona from Kansas as a boy with his father they first settled in Springerville, later moving to the Fort Thomas country when he personally knew the Clanton family, so prominently mentioned in in Mr. Walter Noble Burns' book "Tombstone." His first trip into what is now the city of Tombstone was in September of 1878 and at the time there was but one small frame shack owned by Edward Schieffelin and the rest of the camp was bear grass huts sheltering miners and prospectors, who had come in search of gold and silver following Ed Schieffelin's original discoveries. These shacks were located along the gulch back of where the railroad depot now stands. He rode on to Waterville the same day he arrived here and there found a small store owned by a man named Stowe, a saloon and several little cabins. Waterville site is located in the draw among the granite boulders at the foot of the Schieffelin Monument location. From this place, which was the location of a spring, Tombstone later on received its first water supply which was pumped into a tank on a hill now commonly known as Tank Hill situated northwest of town. Later, on this Tombstone had its first ice plant which was operated by a co-partnership with James Lamb as the engineer and ice machine operator. This spring later went dry and was abandoned as a source of water. Shortly after, on September 1, 1881, the Huachuca Water Company piped its waters into Tombstone from the Huachuca Mountains. Mr. Jones comes to Tombstone regularly where he enjoys the reputation of having furnished most of the tombstones in the local cemetery.
Son of Local Judge has gun owned by Earp Tombstone Epitaph, January 17, 1929
Wyatt Earp's favorite six-shooter, a gun he carried during his Dodge City, Kansas days and one he used while Deputy U.S. Marshal here, is now owned by Albert A. Sames, son of Judge Albert M. Sames, now attending school at the Univerity of Wisconson. The famous gun was formerly owned by Douglas Gray of this place and was owned by only one other person since leaving the hands of Wyatt Earp. It is a finely made gun with a beautiful pearl handle and must have been one of the best obtainable at that time.
(Note: With help from others, it has been established that the gun & documentation are in a safe place)
Doc Holliday's Gun? Date of original article unknown at this time. (Probably early 1930s)
"The Gun is a .45 Colts, nickel plated. It has had its barrel cut off to about four and a half inches and the side extractor had been cut off. it is a single action Ivory handled and is numbered 37290. The owner also stated it was used in the Short/Storms battle. (Note: According to sources, gun is in good condition)
Doc Holliday's Pearl handled six-shooter? Brewery Gulch Gazette, June 3, 1932
"Bat Masterson and Doc became good friends. When we left Dodge City, Bat presented Doc with a fine pearl handled six-shooter."
Bad Men Not So Bad Earp Widow Tells News Man. Tombstone Epitaph, March 30, 1930
Los Angeles- "Bad men of the frontier days are entitled to their dues, in the opinion of Mrs. Wyatt Earp, widow of the colorful mining man and celebrated peace officer of Tombstone, Ariz, but most of them were not as bad as they have been painted." Most of the tales revolving around Mr. Earp are romances," said Mrs. Earp. Here on a visit from her home in Oakland, she revealed that she is collaborating in a book which will deal with the facts of the winning of the west insofar as they pertain to her late husband.
1880's Cowboy vs. 1920s Gangster Tombstone Epitaph Newspaper, July 17, 1930
"I went through the palmiest days of old Tombstone and I saw it all. It is not to be compared with the killings by the thugs of today. I think these modern day gangsters, unless they ganged up on a man, wouldn't have had a show in a stand and fight gun-battle at Tombstone in the eighties. Some of the boys I knew would have picked their teeth with a forty-five while they were getting their machine gun set up. I usually let the other fellow shoot first. Only three times did I have to turn my man over to the undertaker. I never got a scratch and was never hurt. Those bad men were easy to arrest. You could talk to them and they listened. It used to be so easy to track a man in those days. He had to go to a water hole and there you were. Everyone went armed but now the only man with a gun is an outlaw. They are just plumb reforming things so it ain't safe for any one any more. Many of the boys who were killed in Tombstone killed themselves. That is a fact. A cowboy would get a few drinks in a saloon and would start whirling his revolver on the trigger guard and ____. I know of twelve of the boys who punctured their own hides with their own bullets. That was the price paid for being a frontier smarty. No sir- I don't like the modern gangsters. the officers of today have a much harder job then we did forty-five or fifty years ago." "Billy" Breckenridge, former deputy sheriff at Cochise County, Territory of Arizona
Wyatt Earp, "tinhorn"gambler Tombstone Epitaph, July 13, 1933
I am not an admirer of the so-called "old lion" Wyatt Earp. In my opinion he was nothing but a "tinhorn" gambler. I often wonder why it is that none of his biographers ever mention his first wife, Mattie. The poor girl died in San Francisco many years ago. I have heard it stated that he would compel her to go into places against her will and make money for him to gamble on." J.C. Hancock
Was Wyatt Earp was a pimp? We believe so.
For more, click Roger Myers "_Pimp "
Was Wyatt Earp Marshal of Dodge City?
Dodge City Pioneer Speaks With Authority About Wyatt Earp Tombstone Epitaph, January 11, 1934
Relative to Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and others will say that the Earp boys standing was good during their residence in Dodge City. There was no indication that they had outlaw tendencies. Wyatt was outstanding as a peace officer when the old town was wild, wooly and wicked. There is no instance of revolt where he hesitated for an instant to do his duty regardless of any odds against him. If Clay Allison ever "scared" Wyatt no one here heard about it, but it was generally known that Clay and Bat Masterson were enemies. Again referring to Wyatt Earp's character, really, he was brave, of good manners, and very efficient, probably the best city marshal we ever had. Yours Truly, S.P. Reynolds
Tombstone Epitaph, October 5, 1933
Anton Mazzanovich said:
"It is not true that Wyatt Earp was at any time Marshal of Dodge City."
"The OK Corral Inquest," Edited By Alford E. Turner, Published 1981
Page 168, "Defense Exhibit "A"
To All Whom It May Concern, Greetings:
We, the undersigned, citizens of Dodge City, Ford county, Kansas, and vicinity, do by these presents certify that we are personally acquainted with Wyatt earp, late of this city, that he (Wyatt Earp) came here in the year 1876; that during the years of 1877, 1878, and 1879, he was Marshal of our city;
San Francisco Examiner, August 2, 1896
Wyatt Earp stated the following: "It happened in 77, when I was City Marshal of Dodge City, Kansas."
Richard E. Erwin's "The Truth About Wyatt Earp", Published 1993
Page 81
In Summary, all that we can say with any certainty is that Wyatt was a deputy marshal during the summer and fall of 1876. He was neither marshal or assistant marshal.
Casey Tefertiller's Wyatt Earp, "The Life Behind the Legend," Published 1997
Page 16
Earp said he had been recruited to take the marshalship, not the deputy job. However, the only surviving issue of the Dodge City Times for 1876 lists Deger as marshal and Earp as "assistant marshal."
Steve Gatto's "The Real Wyatt Earp", Published 2000
Page 20
"Wyatt Earp served as an assistant marshal on the Dodge City police force on and off from may 1876 to September 1879"
Letter to Tombstone Epitaph Editor "Who killed John Ringo?
Dear Sir-- "The answer to the question, "Who killed John Ringo," which appeared in a recent issue of the Epitaph, is, that there is no question but what (that) John Ringo took his own life. I knew several men were on the inquest and who helped bury the body. Two of them, Rob't M. Boller of Ajo, Arizona and A.E. ("Bull") Lewis, were old friends of mine and both told me that they had made a thorough examination of the body which was leaning against one of the little live Oak trees which formed the clump in which he was sitting. He had shot himself in the right temple and the bullet came out the top of his head and only one shot fired out of his six-shooter, which lay in his lap where it had caught in his watch chain. If Frank Leslie or anyone else had killed him they would not have gone to the trouble of placing him in that position. These are the facts on which the jury based their decision that John had taken his own life. The body is buried within a few feet of where it was found and can be pointed out by most anyone living in that canyon. John's sister came down from san Jose, California, a few years ago and visited the grave, but the body was not removed. Mr. Ed Earl Repp makes a big mistake when he digs up the "old Tombstone Prospector and the old Mexican. The Prospector tells the story and the Mexican corroborates it and says it happened "over in the Dragoon Mountains." That proves that it is a lot of "bunk" made up to sell to some sensational magazine. It was in West Turkey Creek canyon in the CHIRICAHUA Mountains where John ended his life. I knew John Ringo and also Frank Leslie. There is no comparison between the two men. Ringo was a man of honor and his word was good. Frank Leslie was just the opposite---a dirty killer who would betray any one for a few dollars." Very truly yours, J.C. Hancock, Paradise, Arizona August 10, 1934
Tombstone Epitaph Sept. 9, 1934 (partial)
Who Shot John Ringo? Guy J. Griffen also wrote:
I was a guard at the pen while he (Frank Leslie) was there and talked to him several times. He told me there that he killed Ringo. Johnny Behan, who had been sheriff at Tombstone at the time of Ringo's death, told me that it was positively suicide and that he knew Leslie was not in the Chiricahuas at the time.--- A Frank King Maverick in the Western Livestock Journal in Los Angeles.
Saw the Get-Away Of Johnny-Behind the Deuce Tombstone Epitaph, October 4, 1934
Lawrence Nordhoff came back to Tombstone Monday after an absence of nearly half a century. He lived here from 1880 to 1883 and has many vivid memories of those exiting days. Among the names that are real to Mr. Nordhoff are Clum, Sorin, Parsons, Gird, O'Gorman, Carr and Eccleston. The famous incident of the escape from the Tombstone mob of Johnnie-Behind-The-Deuce he recalls in detail. "It was fun for me," he says, "and I wondered why in the world someone didn't nab that fellow before he got away." Then you saw Wyatt Earp hold back the mob while the prisoner was taken to safety?" "No, I don't remember that: in fact, I was not and am not much for the Earps. The Clantons were good fellows. Yes, I heard the noise of their famed battle but was just around the corner." Mr. Nordhoff came to Arizona from New York and was with a Southern pacific surveying party between Casa Grande and El Paso. He left the party and came to Tombstone. he recalls running the Washington hand press to crank off one edition of the Epitaph when the pressmen had taken one drink too many. "I learned to run the press back in New York and thought it strange that the knowledge came in so handy thousands of miles away many years thereafter." Mr. Nordhoff came over Monday from the Star King Ranch, where he is the guest of Mr. and Mrs. L.W. Klene."
Robt. M. Bollar's "Back Trailing of Fifty Years"
Tombstone
Epitaph, November 11, 1934 (Partial)
Then to Tombstone
There stands on Main Street (Allen St.) a sign that reads, "Here on this street Wyatt Earp played his lone hand against a lynch mob of 300 and saving his prisoner Johnny Behind The Deuce, who was hidden in Vogan's Bowling Alley, Jan. 15, 1881." I was one in that Lynch mob, as was James C. Hancock, Justice of the Peace at Paradise, in Cochise County, Arizona. "Let us get at the facts-Johnny Behind The Deuce shot and killed Hank Schneider, the engineer at the smelter in Charleston, as Schneider was coming out of the Chinese restaurant. The constable at Charleston, fearing a mob would form, got a team of mules and a buckboard wagon and started for Tombstone, taking the prisoner with him. The mob formed in Charleston as was expected. Seeing himself pursued the constable transferred his prisoner to a swift race horse that happened to be in training some miles from Tombstone on the Charleston road. Tombstone at that date had a population of eight or nine thousand persons, mostly floaters come to pick up gold at the end of the rainbow-Tombstone. Let me describe the scene as it was. Up Main Street at full speed and with white foam came a horse carrying two men. They stopped before the bowling alley where Wyatt Earp was standing. There was a hurried conversation among them, then the man without a hat entered the bowling alley and immediately Wyatt Earp took his position back to the door, and faced the fast gathering crowd. He drew his gun demanding the crowd to get back which it did without protest. If there was a fire arm in the crowd or even a rope, I did not see it. If there was a threat of violence, I never heard it. In a few minutes a livery rig drove up and Johnny Behind The Deuce got in with the constable and drove away unmolested. I don't believe there was a man in the crowd that knew what happened at Charleston.
I am back of every word I write. Robt. M. Bollar
More On Johnny-Behind-The-Deuce J.C. Hancock, Tombstone Epitaph, November 22, 1934
I "back trailed" with my old friend, Rob't Bollar, who I read his article a few days in the Epitaph, and it sure brought up may memories of those old by-gone days, now gone forever. Bollar's description of the Johnny-Behind-The-Deuce affair is correct. There was no threats of violence or any shouting or yelling. None of the crowd was armed and no one had a rope. I do not think there was over seventy-five or a hundred persons in that "frenzied mob of desperadoes, cowboys and miners" as described by those modern writers of to-day, and as Bollar says, hardly anyone knew what the trouble was about or what happened in Charleston. I have since been reliably informed that there was no trouble in Charleston, either."
To be continued when time permits
"No matter who wrote it, don't believe everything you read"