On March 15, 1881, unknown parties stopped the Wells Fargo stage 10 miles west of Tombstone and, during a botched robbery attempt, killed the driver and a passenger. Sheriff Behan and the Earp brothers rounded up only one suspect, and he escaped. Since then, suspicion has focused on John Henry "Doc" Holliday as one of the bandits. In June Virgil Earp became Tombstone's chief of police, usually referred to as city marshal.
Six months later, on September 8, the Bisbee stage was held up by several masked men. City Marshal Virgil Earp and Deputies Wyatt and Morgan Earp arrested cowboys Pete Spence and Frank Stilwell. These arrests set the stage for what would later become known as the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Following the arrests, Morgan and Virgil Earp walked up behind Ike Clanton on Allen Street, and Virgil whacked Ike across the head with a sixshooter. After charging Ike with illegally carrying a gun, they marched him to a court. Wyatt Earp entered the room and began taunting Clanton. Ike did not take the bait but paid a $25 fine.
Wyatt then encountered Tom McLaury on the street. Earp asked if he were armed; upon learning that he wasn't, Earp slapped him, bounced a pistol off his head, and left him bleeding in the dirt. Within minutes, Ike and Billy Clanton, plus Tom and Frank McLaury, had gathered in a vacant lot on Fremont Street a few doors distant from the OK Corral. Billy Clanton and Frank McLaury had apparently made up their minds to go back to the ranch. Their saddled horses stood beside them.
But it was now too late to leave, since Wyatt, Morgan, and Vigil Earp, plus Doc Holliday, were bearing down on them. They were all armed, Doc Holliday out of the ordinary way, in that he toted a double-barreled shotgun under his long coat. One of his party, probably Wyatt, screamed, "You sons of bitches, you have been looking for a fight!" Virgil followed by yelling for the cowboys to throw up their hands. The shooting started.
Wyatt likely shot Frank McLaury in the stomach. Holliday killed Tom McLaury with a shotgun blast. Billy Clanton stumbled to the ground fatally wounded, and Ike Clanton, not having a weapon, dashed over to Wyatt, screamed something to the effect that he wanted no part of this, and fled unmolested.
In seconds the gunfight was history. Frank McLaury was dead; Billy Clanton and Tom McLaury were dying. Morgan Earp had been wounded in the back; Virgil had a hole in his lower right leg; and Doc Holliday had a smarting hip where a bullet had grazed it. The lawmen would recover.
A coroner's inquest essentially did not pass judgment, although warrants were issued for the three Earps plus Doc Holliday, all of whom were bonded out. However, Wyatt and Holliday's bonds were revoked, and they remained jailed.
During the hearing, on November 16, 1881, Wyatt read several pages of a long, often rambling statement going back over every conversation and threat made toward him during the last few months. He then presented the court with a good-character testimonial signed by 49 Dodge City civic leaders. He followed that with a shorter endorsement signed by seven Wichita, Kansas, politicians. Wyatt then sat down, not having been cross-examined.
Judge Wells Spicer rendered his verdict-longer than Wyatt Earp's statement-in which he also seemingly went over every bit of evidence and found Earp and Holliday not guilty of murder. He ordered their release.
Public opinion both supported and condemned the gunfight victors, but some citizens were more than vocal. On December 28, 1881, shortly before midnight, as Virgil Earp walked toward the Golden Eagle Brewery in the Cosmopolitan Hotel, a shotgun blast shattered his left arm.
On the following day Wyatt Earp wired U.S. Marshal Crawley Dake and asked to be appointed deputy marshal. The request was immediately granted.
Nearly three weeks later, on January 17, Doc Holliday and John Ringo confronted each other in the middle of a crowded street. Tombstone's acting police chief, James Flynn, along with Wyatt Earp, broke up the confrontation.
Deputy Marshal Wyatt Earp on January 23 pulled together a posse that included his brother Morgan, his reliable sidekick Doc Holliday, and five other men. Their intent was to apprehend "diverse persons," meaning primarily the Clantons and John Ringo, desperadoes they hoped to find in nearby Charleston. However, after disrupting lives and making threats, the posse returned to Tombstone near the end of the month with no arrests and no battles to show for their efforts. On February 1, 1882, Virgil and Wyatt resigned as U.S. deputy marshals, but the resignations were not accepted. They were instead arrested and taken to nearby Contention, Arizona, for possible trial regarding the slaying of Billy Clanton. However, the judge found no valid reason for retrying the incident.
The Earps' troubles were far from over. On March 18, 1882, in Campbell and Hatch's Billiard Parlor in Tombstone, as Wyatt Earp sat in a chair, his brother Morgan Earp prepared to sink a ball in the outside pocket. At that instant, two assassins fired through the window. One bullet had Wyatt Earp's name on it, but it thundered into the wall over his head. The other bullet passed through the body of Morgan Earp. He lived perhaps an hour. A jury believed the assassins to be Frank Stilwell, Pete Spence, and Frederick Bode.
On March 20, Morgan's body was loaded onboard a California-bound train. The wounded and weak Virgil accompanied it, as did a heavily armed Wyatt and his brother Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, Sherman McMasters, and Jack Johnson, better known as "Turkey Creek." When the train arrived in Tucson later that day, the Earp party encountered Frank Stilwell, whom they followed alongside the train and shot to death. Florentino Cruz became number two on the list; the Earp party trailed him into the Dragoon Mountains and shot him too. In the meantime, the authorities in Tombstone arrested and jailed Pete Spence and Frederick Bode for investigation into Morgan Earp's murder. Charges were later dropped for lack of evidence.
Five days later the Torbstorae printed a sensational story that Curley Bill Brocius had been slain by Wyatt Earp in the Whetstone Mountains. All that is known for certain is that at this time Curley Bill dropped from sight. Opinion is hotly divided as to whether he was actually slain or chose to disappear. Wyatt claimed to have killed Brocius, but Wyatt told different stories at different times.
Earp left Arizona in April 1882 for Gunnison, Colorado, returning to Dodge City, Kansas, in 1883. The next year found him in Shoshone County, Idaho, where he did some legitimate mining as well as some illegitimate claim jumping.
Earp continued his wanderings, finding himself in San Francisco, California, on December 2, 1896. There he would become known as the referee who "threw" a crucial heavyweight fight. Heavyweight champion contenders Tom Sharkey and Bob Fitzsimmons met that day in the Mechanics Pavilion. Fitzsimmons, better known as "Ruddy Bob," was an Englishman, a former blacksmith, and now a professional boxer. Sharkey was an Irishman, a former seaman, and like Fitzsimmons had fought several notable opponents. The two men would battle for the privilege of meeting the heavyweight champion of the world. The winner would also receive a certified check for $10,000, the money to be handed over by the referee at the close of the fight.
When the contestants could not agree on a referee, promoter Andrew "Long Green" Lawrence suggested his bodyguard, Wyatt Earp. Although a controversial figure in his own right, Earp obtained the job even though the police chief, noticing a bulge in Earp's coat, stepped into the ring and demanded Earp's six-shooter. Wyatt handed it over, and everybody settled back in their seats.
For seven rounds both men fought hard, each going once to the canvas. Both seemed to be tiring. In the eighth round, Fitzsimmons landed a left to the body and a right to the chin, and Sharkey went down, rolling over and holding his groin. Earp at that instant declared Sharkey the winner on a foul. He handed him the check and left the ring. A riot started.
The Athletic Club stopped payment on the check. Two doctors examined Sharkey for evidence of a groin injury. Each disagreed with the other's diagnosis. Two other physicians examined Sharkey and agreed that he had been injured but not sufficiently to halt the fight.
In the meantime, Earp made no effort to recover his gun, although four officers arrested him for carry
ing a concealed weapon. He pos
ted a $50 bond. Sharkey kept the $10,000 purse.
So, was the fight fixed? Was Sharkey struck below the belt? Did Wyatt Earp actually see the foul, or was he somehow involved in a kickback scheme? The answers are not in, and never will be. Only the questions linger.
Wyatt Earp continued his wanderings, establishing a Dexter Saloon partnership at Nome, Alaska, in late 1899. He also managed to get arrested for interfering with an officer and so left Alaska in 1901. He and Josephine lived mostly in Los Angeles, he at times being arrested for various confidence schemes.
Wyatt Earp died in Los Angeles on January 13, 1929, and was cremated. When Josephine died in 1944, her ashes joined Earp's in the Marcus plot inside the "Hills of Eternity," the Jewish section of the Colma, California, Cemetery.
BLAYLOCK, CELIA ANN; DODGE CITY WAR; EARP, MORGAN; EARP, VIRGIL; GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL; HOLLIDAY, JOHN HENRY
EAST, James Henry (a.k.a. Jim East) (1853-1930)
James Henry East dreamed of being a cowboy, and his dream came true. Although born at Kaskaskia, Illinois (Missouri by some reports), by the time he was 15 years old East had reached the Lone Star State. After the Civil War he rode for the wellknown Tom Ranch in South Texas, as well as for the King Ranch's founders, King and Kennedy. East made several cattle drives to Kansas and at least one to Nebraska. Reportedly, on occasion he raided for horses in Old Mexico, which was not an uncommon practice for youthful and exuberant cowboys.
Along the line he found the Texas Panhandle area appealing, signing on with the LX outfit in 1880. At this point, his career careened in a new direction. Ranch manager W. C. "Outlaw Bill" Moore, himself a questionable character, ordered Charlie Siringo (later to become a famous cowboy detective) to gather a posse of fighting cowboys and run Billy the Kid and his gang to the ground. This posse was to recover cattle that the outlaws had "liberated" from the LX herds as well as from other area ranches. Twenty-seven-year-old Jim East was one of those riders. On November 16, 1880, a posse consisting of East, Lee Hall, Lon Chambers, Cal Polk, Frank Clifford, and Siringo began their manhunt. Along the way they were reinforced by additional manpower, including Frank Stewart, Bob Roberson, Tom Emory, Bob Williams, and Louis "The Animal" Bozeman (Bousman).
In New Mexico Territory, the posse encountered Lincoln County sheriff Pat Garrett and one of his deputies, Barney Mason. Garrett was seeking assistance in his quest of capturing or killing Billy the Kid. Jumping at the chance, Jim East, Lee Hall, and Lon Chambers from the LX outfit volunteered, joined by Tom Emory, Bob Williams, and "The Animal," Bousman. On the night of December 19, 1880, at Fort Sumner, Garrett deployed the men and waited. At about eight o'clock the outlaws rode in single file into town and into the possemen's bullets. Riding in the lead were Tom O'Folliard and Tom Pickett, followed by Dave Rudabaugh, Billy Wilson, Charlie Bowdre, and Billy the Kid. For a few seconds the exchange of gunfire was blistering, and to this day it is debatable as to whose bullet inflicted what damage. In the end, only Tom O'Folliard, with a bullet in his chest, slumped from his horse. With an about-face the other outlaws fled. O'Folliard was laid out on East's blankets. Jim brought the wounded desperado a drink of water, and then O'Folliard "lay back, shuddered and was dead."
On December 22, the posse surrounded a rock house at Stinking Springs. At daylight, Bowdre stepped from the house, was mistaken for the Kid, and was gunned down. Jim East and Tom Emory then slipped to the rear of the fortification and fired a few shots into the house to convince the outlaws inside that chipping through the rock wall was not a viable option. With no hope of escape, the outlaws surrendered. If the reports are indeed true, East and Lee Hall, at gunpoint, prevented Barney Mason from executing Billy the Kid, an act very much appreciated by the young hoodlum, who gave Jim East his Winchester for the favor. East had his comeuppance at Fort Sumner, however. With the prisoners in tow, and Charlie Bowdre's body bouncing in a wagon, a grieving as well as furious Mrs. Manuela Bowdre struck East over the head with a branding iron, fortunately inflicting no damage except for painful knots.
On the return trip to Texas, Jim East decided that police work was more to his liking than being a cow
boy, and during the elections of 1882, with considerable ranch-hand support, he won an election as the second sheriff of Oldham County. As sheriff, East suffered the usual trials and tribulations of frontier law enforcement: Ed Norwood, charged with murder, escaped from jail. After suffering through a bitterly cold surveillance, East courageously arrested an exceedingly desperate Bill Gatlin. East aroused the cattlemen's ire, however, when he collected the "drift tax" (a fee paid for the collection of stray cattle). He sorted out the gory details of March 21, 1886, when colliding cowboy factions clashed in old Tascosa and four were killed. Later, in 1889 he killed a local gambler named Tom Clark during a fierce gun battle in a saloon.
After stepping down as sheriff, East operated a detective agency in Amarillo, and then, in 1903, at the age of 50, he moved to Douglas, Arizona Territory, and accepted the position of town marshal. Later he served as municipal judge. On June 30, 1930, the old cowboy closed his eyes and dreamed of days gone by as he peacefully rode the last trail to the other side.
c BILLY THE KID; GARRETT, PATRICK FLOYD JARVIS; HALL, JESSE LEE; SIRINGO, CHARLES ANGELO
ELLSWORTH, Kansas
Ellsworth, one of the Kansas cow towns, displayed little of its wild nature until the Kansas Pacific Railroad arrived. That, of course, encouraged Texas cowboys, weary from long months on the trail, but they had no sooner hit town than they collided with the three-man Ellsworth police force. In 1873, a fiery cowboy named Billy Thompson killed Sheriff Chauncey Whitney with a shotgun. The police then killed a cowboy named Cad Pierce. The Texans had now killed two of the three policemen. Where it all might have ended is impossible to say, except that the rails kept moving west, and so did the cattle. Ellsworth, thus, became little more than a blip on the Wild West scene. By 1874 its day had essentially passed.
See490: THOMPSON, WILLIAM J.
EL PASO Salt War
For many years of its early life, El Paso, Texas, in the far western corner of the state, slept peacefully. It was awakened by rumbles caused by salt beds 90 miles east of town. Salt, of course, had a multitude of uses, especially in the silver mines in Mexico. For centuries the salt trails had curled north out of Mexico, and southwestern residents had made a fair living by supplying the product. El Pasoan Albert J. Fountain and others organized a "Salt Ring" in 1868, laid claim to the salt beds, and commenced charging a fee. Fountain then went off to Austin as a state senator; learning that some of those people whom he was charging money actually voted, Fountain thus organized the "Anti-Salt Ring." This led to problems with his former associates, and on December 7, 1870, a shootout occurred in downtown El Paso. Two men died, and
Fountain subsequently moved 40 miles north to Mesilla, New Mexico. His death, on February 2, 1896, still remains the Southwest's greatest murder mystery. His body was never recovered.
By 1876, Missouri attorney Charles Howard had arrived in El Paso, and it wasn't long before he filed on those same salt lakes in the name of his father-inlaw. This brought him into conflict with Louis Cardis, a supporter of the salt gatherers, plus Father Antonio Borrajo, the San Elizario village priest. San Elizario was a Rio Grande community about 30 miles downstream from El Paso. Most of the salt gatherers lived there.
Digging salt during the El Paso Salt War. These salt Flats are approximately 90 miles east of El Paso, Texas (University of Texas at Austin Archives)
On October 10, 1877, Howard caught Cardis inside an El Paso store and killed him with a shotgun. On the following day, the details of the murder reached San Elizario and sent the entire valley into an uproar. The state dispatched Texas Ranger major John B. Jones to investigate, and within a week Jones had set about organizing Company C of the Texas Rangers. He put El Pasoan John B. Tays in charge. While Tays no doubt was a good man, he had no competence in terms of leadership. As for the rangers, many were toughs recruited from Silver
City, New Mexico. According to historian C. L. Sonnichsen, "Not a one of them could have been a ranger under normal circumstances."
Meanwhile, soldiers, most of them from Fort Stanton, began marching on the El Paso Valley. They would not reach San Elizario in time. Howard, acting to protect his salt interests, entered San Elizario with a ranger escort on December 12. His timing could not have been worse.
San Elizario storekeeper Charles Ellis, under suspicion of being an Anglo, was dragged around the plaza and knifed to death. Howard and the rangers timidly watched the affair from their quarters a short distance away and did nothing. At midmorning the next day, Sergeant C. E. Mortimer, patrolling outside, was shot and killed by a sniper. Still the rangers did nothing. Thus the siege continued for several more days, each morning the line of encroaching riflemen drawing closer to the ranger quarters.
The rangers surrendered to the mob, the only time in history that such a thing occurred. The lawmen were disarmed and shoved into a building. As for Howard, he was removed to an open field to face a ragged firing squad. He himself gave the command to fire. After the lead knocked him down, the mob rushed in with machetes and finished the job.
Civilians John Atkinson and John McBride were led out next, and they too fell wounded before the volleys. The mob likewise hacked them to death. All the bodies were tossed in a well. The rangers were then released to find their way home as best they could.
Within days, troops reached San Elizario. Additional ranger recruits had arrived from Silver City. The lower El Paso Valley now became a madhouse, as lawless Texas and New Mexico thugs committed rape and murder with maddening frequency. Most residents, as well as the San Elizario murderers, fled across the Rio Grande into Mexico.
The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters Page 17