Lady at the O.K. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp

by Ann Kirschner

  The summer of 1900 culminated in two storms—one natural, one man-made—that nearly destroyed Nome. The whitewashed skies of late September seemed to signal the end of the saga that had drawn Josephine and Wyatt and so many others to Nome. The Earps had made some $80,000 (more than a million dollars today); most of this came from the Dexter. Even Lucky Baldwin managed to recoup his investment. He offered to repay Wyatt and Josephine, but Wyatt refused, saying that he was “more than satisfied to put a crimp in the grafting of that crowd of crooks.” In fact, Wyatt was one of the few who stood up against one of the worst legal frauds in American history. As George Parsons would note later about Wyatt’s actions in Nome, “if anybody was undeservedly ill-treated and especially an old Tombstoner, he would find a champion in the same Wyatt Earp, who is older now but none the less gritty.”

  Nome was no longer the wide-open frontier. The mining town had grown as if by magic and for the briefest, most intense of summers, it justified the boast of the Nome Nugget to be the greatest mining camp ever known. But now the beach was worse than barren: it was strewn with the aftermath of a catastrophic storm, the last straw for many unsuccessful miners. Nome accounted for almost half of the total gold output of the Seward Peninsula in 1900. The mining industry would continue to thrive at similar levels for the next five years, with some major discoveries still to come in 1904 and 1905. But the majority of the people who came to Nome in those early years left poorer, sadder, and probably no wiser. For some, it was a lark: “My family stayed up in Alaska about a year, then they came back,” Josephine’s grandniece later recalled. “They didn’t get rich. I have a gold nugget that my father dug out of the mines, that I wear as a clip.”

  After the storm, the ticket offices were jammed with people who wanted to leave on the next boat. Many of the unsuccessful miners were penniless or in debt or trying to barter or sell the already decrepit mining equipment that was their only capital. Hundreds went home dead broke, sent back at taxpayer expense like wartime refugees. Brigadier General George M. Randall, commander of the department of Alaska, cried shame on his own government for aiding that “venturesome class of white men” while offering no support to the Alaskan natives, who lost their livelihoods and communities when their natural resources were raided by hordes of fur trappers and prospectors. “It is either a beach of gold two hundred miles long, the greatest placer gold field in the world, or the greatest disappointment of modern times,” lectured the New York Times. “The lesson for these sad observers is that learned by the thousands who have returned home as guests of the United States—that there is more wealth to be gained by downright every-day plugging at some matter-of-fact business than can be picked up on golden beaches.”

  The stampede was on again, only now the direction had reversed. Everyone was trying to get home.

  JOSEPHINE AND WYATT wound up their affairs rapidly. Although Wyatt’s name would continue to appear on advertisements for the Dexter, he sold his ownership to Hoxsie. The mining claims that Wyatt had filed in Josephine’s name were legally transferred to her brother Nathan.

  They would not be there to see Nome’s next phase, though Josephine might have echoed Rex Beach’s flinty hero in The Spoilers, who scoffed, “They’re puttin’ a pavement on Front Street.” By the next summer, Nome had been legally incorporated and enjoyed the benefits of sidewalks, electricity, a local brewery, and a new Catholic church. Gold was yesterday’s story, as editorials in the States began to focus on the promising coal deposits in Alaska. Elections were held for the first municipal officers, and among the first councilmen were Tex Rickard and Charlie Hoxsie. They had become pillars of the community in a way that Wyatt and Josephine never would.

  Josephine had withstood the rigors of one frozen winter, and she had survived the pressures of three stormy years. Like a nomadic fraternity, the Earps’ friends were already regrouping in Nevada and California deserts. There would be other gold fields, and other adventures, but no place like Nome.

  Once again, the frictions of their marriage were resolved, and they were ready to move on, together. As they left Nome aboard the SS Roanoke in the fall of 1901, Wyatt was reported to have said, “She’s been a good old burg. Mighty good to us.”

  4 | WAITING FOR WYATT

  [WYATT EARP] has just returned from Nome, where he has mining properties sufficient to make him financially comfortable for the rest of his life,” reported the Los Angeles Express. “Mr. and Mrs. Earp will continue their journey south tomorrow and will return to Nome the coming season.”

  The Express had it mostly wrong. The profits made in Nome were not from gold mines. Nor would the Earps ever return to Alaska.

  But Mr. and Mrs. Earp had at last made their fortune, enough to follow their inclinations. They loved the desert; they loved prospecting; the rootless life of temporary residences and changing landscapes suited them. Wyatt suggested the purchase of a cattle ranch, perhaps with his brother James, but Josephine felt that this plan would tie them down. “So we compromised,” she recalled. They would continue prospecting while scouting for a suitable ranch. They sat and planned like children, drawing straws to decide which point on the compass they would follow to their next destination.

  They started out in central Nevada, beginning in Tonopah, where there was news of a big silver strike. In a pattern that they would follow for the next twenty-five years, they traced a ragged circle around the warm winter deserts of California and Arizona, then went west for family visits to San Francisco, and south for Los Angeles summers, following the sun and the mining sensation of the day, never fully giving up the sporting life, but also enjoying the trek for its own sake. Risk was their oxygen, and ennui was a kind of death to be avoided at all costs. Neither of them knew how to live without some new frontier beckoning on the horizon.

  THEY OUTFITTED THEMSELVES for the desert in Los Angeles, purchasing a big Studebaker wagon with four heavy horses, as well as a lighter spring wagon with another team of horses. They would drive the lighter wagon, while Al Martin, a horse trainer and partner from their racing days, filled the Studebaker with provisions and a heavy load of what the Tonopah newspaper called “software,” otherwise known as liquor, which would stock a new saloon. Wyatt was at his best planning for these trips, as careful about the horses’ comfort as he was about theirs. Josephine laughed at her own efforts to smuggle in extra cooking pots and other nonessentials, which Wyatt would cheerfully toss out of the wagon as soon as they hit a rough patch of road. He was more forgiving about the stray dogs and cats that Josephine had a habit of rescuing. Their portable home included a tent, folding chairs, and a mattress, which would be repacked every morning and covered with a waterproof tarpaulin. An excellent cook but an indifferent housekeeper, Josephine ceded the chore of making the bed to Wyatt, who was “the soul of neatness.”

  Disdainful of the overalls or bloomers worn by some of the women they met on the road, Josephine was increasingly sensitive to her age and weight. Her wardrobe was basic and comfortable, but she still had a horror of “mannish attire.” Trousers were particularly unbecoming on a lady “past the first blush of youth,” she decided. Her concessions to the rigors of the desert would be shorter dresses, stronger fabrics, stout high-laced boots with low heels, and a wide-brimmed hat or sun bonnet to protect her from the desert wind and sun.

  “I recall the days from that time . . . with a greater degree of pleasure than any other portion of our life together,” Josephine reminisced to Mabel Cason and Vinnolia Ackerman. Every expedition—and there were dozens of them—renewed her sense of adventure and the intimacy of the road trip.

  “[Wyatt Earp and his wife and A. Martin] are good citizens and we welcome them,” announced the Tonopah Bonanza newspaper. Tonopah did not yet have rail service, and Wyatt had a plan to deliver supplies to the growing town while they scouted a location for a suitable ranch. Once again, his timing was off, though not as badly as it had been in Tombstone; the delivery business was limited. Instead, Wyatt immediately be
came busy with a new saloon, the Northern, within days of their arrival. Despite a deadly pneumonia epidemic that nearly decimated the camp, Wyatt scored with his usual golden combination of liquor, gambling, and prostitution. Nor was he completely done with police work: he was hired privately by the eminent mining engineer John Hays Hammond to protect mining claims and he also accepted a commission as deputy U.S. marshal. The largest customer for his freighting business was Tasker Oddie, a Brooklyn-born lawyer, general manager of Tonopah Mining Company and future governor and senator of Nevada, who impressed Josephine with his pleasant ways and fine education.

  But Wyatt’s rapid return to saloon keeping and the sporting life, or what Josephine called “business,” upset her. She had fooled herself into thinking that they had left these pursuits behind in Alaska. “I was against him going into business,” Josephine protested. “I hated it and I believed he did too . . . but for every man in the prime of his life the clamor and barter of the marketplace has a certain fascination.”

  She left Wyatt and Tonopah to spend time in Oakland with her sister Hattie, who was about to have a baby. Emil Lehnhardt Jr. was born on May 24, 1902. When she returned, Wyatt had lost interest in Tonopah and was already searching for their next camp. He sold his freighting equipment, retaining one team of horses and their large wagon, and transferred ownership in the Northern Saloon to Al Martin. Prospecting had proved to be lean, but before they left, Josephine and Wyatt filed three claims in Tonopah—naming one of them after Hattie’s son.

  AFTER A SHORT summer break in Los Angeles, Josephine and Wyatt traveled to Goldfield, Nevada, the latest boomtown. The movements of Wyatt Earp “and his wife, dog, and trusty rifle” from Tonopah were followed by the newspapers. As if Josephine had dictated the press release, one reporter noted that Wyatt Earp had given up saloons and peacekeeping. “He has foresworn the green cloth and the automatic revolver and is now dependent on his ability as a miner for a living as well as his fame.”

  In Goldfield, they were reunited with Tex Rickard, whose New Northern was the most popular saloon in town. But it was Tex’s career as a fight promoter that exploded in Nevada. To raise interest in an upcoming championship fight, he dumped prize money of more than $32,000 in gold pieces into the window of the New Northern. The stunt drew national attention and put Goldfield and Rickard on the map. While the glint of Goldfield’s reputation was soon gone, Rickard’s reputation soared. He went on to become the founder of Madison Square Garden and the most famous fight promoter in the country, drawing huge crowds and championship purses that reached $1 million.

  More Earps showed up in Goldfield. Virgil and Allie arrived in January 1905 from Colton, where Virgil had been running a detective agency. Now there were two couples traveling together. Wyatt and Virgil still looked and thought alike, while their wives could not have been more different. Allie bore a heavy load of grudges against Wyatt that dated back to Tombstone and his desertion of Mattie. Josephine sniffed at Allie’s down-home accent and lack of sophistication. Their conflicts must have added some serious spice to the evening meals around the campfire. However, the four of them shared a love of the open road. They prospected as a quartet with more patience than luck until they found promising signs near the Colorado River, the region where Wyatt and Josephine eventually staked out some twelve claims in the foothills of the Little Turtle Mountains. They called it the Happy Day mines, Josephine explained, because it was their favorite place.

  Virgil and Allie, however, did not share in the discovery. According to Allie’s niece Hildreth Halliwell, Wyatt cut them out deliberately, sending them home with the prediction that “there wasn’t any use in staying out there any longer, no mines around there.” Halliwell was usually quick to blame Josephine, summing her up as a “clever schemer” who never did anything for anybody without getting paid for it. But in this case, Allie’s niece pointed her finger straight at Wyatt.

  A rift might have opened up between the brothers had they not been immediately consumed with a far more serious concern when they returned to Goldfield: a pneumonia epidemic sweeping through the town. Virgil was the only one of the four to fall sick. His decline was swift: Virgil died on October 19, 1905, at the age of sixty-two.

  To many, Virgil had been held in greater esteem than Wyatt or any of the other Earps. He had led “a more exciting life than comes to the average man,” noted his obituary in the Goldfield News. Between the reticence of the era and his own taciturn nature, Wyatt said nothing publicly about the loss of his older brother, but according to Josephine, his death stirred the still strong emotions Wyatt had about their life in Tombstone and Morgan’s assassination.

  Allie had few choices about how and where to live without her lifelong partner. She had no savings, and a few secrets of her own. No one knew, for instance, that she and Virgil had not been ceremonially married, which disqualified her for a pension as a Civil War widow. She accepted the invitation of her niece Hildreth Halliwell to move to Los Angeles. Wyatt and Josephine visited her there, often accepting an invitation to stay for Sunday supper. But without Virgil’s warmth to counter Allie’s astringent wit and mistrust of Josephine, the three survivors were linked by loyalty and shared history rather than affection.

  Of the eight men at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881, only Wyatt was still alive.

  After Virgil’s death, Josephine and Wyatt left Goldfield and resumed their usual pattern. The desert drew them like a magnet. As soon as they unpacked in Los Angeles or another one of their favorite coastal cities—San Diego, San Francisco, or Santa Barbara—they longed to return to their camp near Vidal, California, close to the Arizona border. They had lost none of their love for sleeping under the stars, the smell of rain on the desert, and nights that induced such a profound sense of serenity that Josephine suggested “it would have been hard to find two people with less need for a nerve specialist than we in those years.”

  They were blessed with good health; in all their decades of camping out, neither of them had consulted a doctor or dentist more than once or twice. The cosmetic effects of outdoor life concerned Josephine more. She reminded Wyatt that “there are not many women who would live as I do, roughing it with you in this hard country.” Wyatt took the hint and responded loyally: “There are not many women who keep as well as you do. You never need to send for the doctor. Anyway you look good to me.” That was good enough for Josephine, who accepted his plain-speaking words in the place of any high-flying romantic compliments. His days of buying her jewelry might be over, but he was still her hero and protector. One of her happiest days in the desert was when Wyatt surprised her by building a tree house, which he had designed as a bedroom that would keep her safe from snakes.

  They had been a strikingly handsome couple in their early days together, but Josephine admitted ruefully that Wyatt had aged far more gracefully. At nearly sixty, his years only added gravitas to his wiry frame, chiseled features, and charisma. Discriminating young women such as Grace Spolidoro, daughter of Wyatt’s close friend Charlie Welsh, recalled Wyatt as “tall and erect with steely blue eyes that could stare right through you.” Neighbors remembered his deep voice, carefully chosen words, and chivalrous manners. When in town, Wyatt never joined the breakfast table until he was fully dressed in his dark suit, his collar fastened, necktie in place.

  The towering, still powerful figure of Wyatt Earp fit the rugged saga of Tombstone, while Josephine was looking more like a frumpy old aunt. Gravity and extra pounds had taken their toll on her hourglass figure, and her beautiful hair and skin showed the effects of their nomadic circuit. With no particular need to dress up, she wore shapeless housedresses that fit their life at the camp but did little to remind anyone of the saucy young woman of Tombstone. Age did nothing to diminish her bright eyes or the gift of mimicry that made her popular with children, as did the sweets she always had ready to share from her sister’s candy store, Lehnhardt’s of Oakland. To teenage Grace Welsh Spolidoro, Josephine appeared to be merely a “good gu
ard,” plump and bosomy, always fussing with her hair and hat, inexplicably spoiled by Wyatt. She was amusing, Grace recalled, though she also criticized Josephine for her preference for gambling rather than taking proper care of Wyatt.

  They lived frugally, but their Alaskan stake was almost gone. At one point, Josephine considered a return trip that might replenish their fortune. “We are talking some of going to Alaska for the summer,” she wrote to a friend, after she and Wyatt were invited to join a prospecting trip. “And I am just in for it, as I do want to find a good gold mine. And I think that’s the country.”

  Wyatt was then sixty-six, and she was fifty-four. Realistic planning for the future had never been their strong suit.

  JOSEPHINE WAS IN the desert on April 18, 1906, when San Francisco and the Bay Area suffered a major earthquake, followed by a fire that consumed most of the city over the next three days. In what has been described as America’s greatest urban catastrophe, more than 3,500 people died, and half of the city’s survivors were left homeless. Business came to a total halt. The immigrant Jewish quarter south of Market Street, where the Marcus family once lived, was devastated. So was the personal history of several generations as the earthquake opened a yawning chasm in pre-1906 history that would never be filled, as archives, photographs, public records, and personal memorabilia disappeared forever.

  It was a time of communal suffering. The Lehnhardt mansion in nearby Oakland was spared and became even more the center of the family as Hattie and Emil made room for displaced friends and family; Sophia Marcus was already living with them, and Rebecca and Aaron followed with their children. Josephine and Wyatt were the last to move in.