The Real Story of the Earp Bros in Nevada

Virgil Earp

   The recent death of Nevada historian/long-time Nevada State Archivist Guy Louis Rocha made me recall one of his books, “The Earps’ Last Frontier: Wyatt and Virgil Earp in the Nevada Mining Camps 1902-1905,” which he co-wrote with Jeffrey M. Kintop.

   Published in 1989, this slim volume remains one of the definitive historical works on the short time that the two Earp brothers spent in the mining towns of Tonopah and Goldfield.

   According to Kintop and Rocha, in January 1902, Wyatt Earp, fresh from Alaska’s mining boom, arrived in Tonopah with his wife, Josie. Within a few months, he and a partner had opened the Northern Saloon, and Earp also worked as a teamster for the Tonopah Mining Company, hauling ore and supplies.

   For a very short time, he may have served as an appointed deputy U.S. Marshal in Tonopah, mostly serving papers to defendants in federal court cases—but he never engaged with any shootouts with or pistol-whipping of desperados, like he had done in Dodge City, Kansas, and Tombstone, Arizona.

   In the late summer of 1903, the always restless Earp and his wife decided to leave Tonopah. He sold his investments and headed to Los Angeles to live. The two, however, returned several times to prospect around Silver Peak and other parts of Esmeralda County.

   And that was about it for Wyatt Earp in Nevada.

   As for Virgil Earp, Wyatt’s older brother, he and his wife, Allie, arrived in Goldfield sometime in the latter part of 1904. Down on his luck and nearly broke, he took a job as deputy sheriff of Esmeralda County and also provided security at the National Club.

   Sadly, a few months after settling in Goldfield, Virgil Earp contracted a bad case of pneumonia, which he was unable to shake. On October 19, 1905, Virgil Earp died in Goldfield at age 62. At the request of his daughter, his remains were sent to Portland, Oregon, and he was buried at the Riverview Cemetery.

   It is believed that Wyatt and Josie Earp may have visited Virgil and Allie in Goldfield sometime during the summer of 1904, but there is no official record of such a visit.

   According to Rocha’s research, “As for Wyatt Earp, there is no end to the list of things he didn’t do in Goldfield. He didn’t tend bar there, he didn’t own a hotel or saloon there, and in fact he didn’t do much of anything there.”

   In total, the two Earp brothers spent about eight and eleven months, respectively, in Nevada—hardly enough time to accomplish everything that has been attributed to them.

   Still, the apocryphal stories about Wyatt Earp in Tonopah make for fun reading. For instance, one of the most often repeated stories involves him coming to the rescue of Tonopah attorney Tasker Oddie, who later served as Nevada’s Governor and U.S. Senator.

   In the tale, claim jumpers were digging a shaft on land owned by Oddie’s clients. In order to stop the men from continuing, the unarmed Oddie jumped into the hole. The men allegedly pulled their guns on Oddie and ordered him to leave.

   At that moment, Wyatt Earp and his saloon partner, Al Martin, came along in a wagon. The famous former lawman, who sometimes worked for Oddie, quickly sized up the situation and jumped into the hole beside his friend.

   When the claim jumpers asked who he thought he was, Earp reportedly said, “I’m Wyatt Earp,” then pointed at Martin, who had a shotgun aimed at the mine thieves. The men lowered their guns and quickly scrambled out of the hole—but not before following Earp’s orders to replace the mine location stakes they’d knocked over.

   The great Nevada mythmakers, Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg, wrote about a remarkably similar episode occurring on a train ride. Allegedly, union thugs decided to shoot Oddie, who worked for the mining companies.

   “A walrus mustached individual in a slouch hat and neat dark suit who was lounging in the smoking room overheard two characters in an adjacent compartment planning to shoot Oddie through the partition as soon as the train got under way,” Beebe and Clegg wrote.

   “Unceremoniously, he kicked open the door of their bedroom and told them the project was ill-advised and they had better leave the train while the going was good. To their inquiry as to just who the hell he thought he was, the answer was simply, ‘Wyatt Earp.’ The assassins left.”

   It was, most likely, yet another example of the adage stated in the classic 1962 western film, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” In it, a newspaper editor tells a young reporter, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”