Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp, who had solidified his fame decades earlier for participating in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, died on this day in 1929. While a hero, Earp was also a lawbreaker himself.
He was born in Illinois in 1848 to a family that hopped around different states frequently in search of work. At 17 years old he went off to make his own way roaming the countryside looking for work, which he found in the freight and railroad industries. He spent his free time boxing and gambling.
Over the next few decades served as a constable in Missouri, lost his wife to typhus, became city marshal of Dodge City, Kan., moved to Tombstone, Ariz., to search for silver with two of his brothers, and became a cop after the strike-it-rich scheme didn't pan out.
In March 1881, he ended up in a feud with a gang, which culminated in a shootout next to the O.K. Corral between Earp, two of his brothers, and a friend up against four others. Everyone but Earp was shot. Three of his opponents died, but one got away. One of Earp's brothers was later shot and killed in a revenge killing, and another injured.
Earp himself gathered a posse and went on a mission for revenge, killing anyone and everyone who he thought may have been involved in his brother's murder. The effort petered out after a couple of months, but by then the gunfight was already famous. He'd keep up his work in policing and mining while also making a career in real estate.
Eventually he'd become a regular in Los Angeles, meeting with actors and acting as an adviser on film sets. His story, told over and over in biographies, movies and TV shows, has been extensively exaggerated, including by Earp himself, who made sure that everyone knew he was the baddest gun in the West. At his death he was 80 years old, having outlived every other participant in the gun battle.
You can learn more about the fight on this webpage on Biography.com.
