The Life And Legend Of Wyatt Earp

GLORIFIED, FICTIONALIZED AND HOTLY DEBATED, THE ENIGMATIC LAWMAN’S LIFE FROM ANTEBELLUM ILLINOIS TO URBAN LOS ANGELES REMAINS ICONICALLY FASCINATING 90 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH.

- Casey Tefertiller

The Wyatt Earp everyone knew has gone away. More than once. Perhaps no figure in American history has endured such an odd ride through fame. He has been portrayed as a magnificent hero and a lowly villain; a glory-seeking braggart and humble introvert avoiding the spotlight.

Writers have created and debunked mythical Wyatt Earps, time after time. It is only in the last couple of decades that we are growing to understand Earp himself and the many controversies of his life.

This is part of what makes Earp and his adventures so enduring—he is a mass of contradictions amid a stew of controversy. Since those gunshots went off in the street outside the O.K. Corral, the debate has raged whether he was a murderer or a brave lawman saving his town from outlaws.

In his own time, as early as 1888, newspaper articles around the nation portrayed Earp as both a hero and a villain, telling exaggerated tales or lapsing into total fantasy. The contradictory legacy would continue into the 20th century, when two major books swept the nation telling of a heroic Earp that rode against injustice. Walter Noble Burns, in his 1928 Tombstone: An Iliad of the Southwest, and Stuart Lake, in his 1931 Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, both created the Earp of legend: a valiant law officer saving the citizenry from an onslaught of outlaws. The books spawned a series of movies, and the movies built a legend.

Then came that TV series, telling American children the remarkable—and supposedly true—story of an unparalleled lawman who shot to wound, not to kill. The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp elevated him to a standard beyond reality. Even the lyrics to the theme song made him grand beyond belief: “The West it was lawless, but one man was flawless,” the ballad flowed from the TV screen into the ears of the children of America. There were those who adamantly believed this was pure bunk.

Earps of the Imagination