Wyatt Earp's fame and reputation has varied through the years. While alive, he had many admirers and detractors. Among his peers near the time of his death, Wyatt Earp was respected. His deputy Jimmy Cairns described Earp's work as a police officer in Wichita, Kansas: "Wyatt Earp was a wonderful officer. He was game to the last ditch and apparently afraid of nothing. The cowmen all respected him and seemed to recognize his superiority and authority at such times as he had to use it." He described Wyatt as "...the most dependable man I ever knew; a quiet, unassuming chap who never drank and in all respects a clean young fellow..."
Among the general public, Earp was likely more well known for the controversy that engulfed him after the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey match in San Francisco than for the gunfight in Tombstone. His Associated Press obituary gave prominent attention to his officiating of the boxing match, while describing him as a "gun-fighter whose blazing six-shooters were, for most of his life, allied with the side of law and order". Public perception of his life has varied as media accounts of his life have evolved.
After the shootout in Tombstone, his pursuit and murder of those who attacked his brothers, and after his leaving Arizona, Wyatt was often the target of negative newspaper stories that disparaged his and his brothers' reputation. His role in history has stimulated considerable ongoing scholarly and editorial debate. A large body of literature has been written about Wyatt Earp and his legacy, some of it highly fictionalized. Considerable portions of it are either full of admiration and flattery or hostile debunking.
Contemporary reputation
Public perception of his life has varied over the years as media accounts of his life changed. The story of the Earps' actions in Tombstone were published at the time by newspapers nationwide. Shortly after the shooting of Curly Bill, the Tucson Star wrote on March 21, 1882, in an editorial about the O.K. Corral gunfight, that the Cowboys had been ordered to put their hands up and after they complied, were shot by the Earps, stating, "The whole series of killings cannot be classed other than cold blooded murder."
When citizens of Dodge City learned the Earps had been charged with murder after the gunfight, they sent letters endorsing and supporting the Earps to Judge Wells Spicer.
John Clum, owner of The Tombstone Epitaph and mayor of Tombstone while Earp was a gambler and lawman there, described him in his book It All Happened in Tombstone.
Bill Dixon knew Wyatt early in his adult life. He wrote:
Famous lawman Bat Masterson described Wyatt in 1907:
Experience in gun fights Wyatt was reputed to be an expert with a revolver. He showed no fear of any man. The Tombstone Epitaph said of Wyatt, "Bravery and determination were requisites, and in every instance proved himself the right man in the right place."
Wyatt was lucky during the few gun fights he took part in from his earliest job as an assistant police officer in Wichita to Tombstone, where he was briefly deputy U.S. marshal. Unlike his lawmen brothers Virgil and James, Wyatt was never wounded, although once his clothing and his saddle were shot through with bullet holes. According to John H. Flood's biography (as dictated to him by Wyatt Earp), Wyatt vividly recalled a presence that in several instances warned him away or urged him to take action. This happened when he was on the street, alone in his room at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, at Bob Hatch's Pool Hall, where he went moments before Morgan was assassinated, and again when he approached Iron Springs and surprised Curly Bill Brocius, killing him.
Negative publicity On April 16, 1894, the Fort Worth Gazette wrote that Virgil Earp and John Behan had a "deadly feud". It described Behan as "an honest man, a good official, and possessed many of the attributes of a gentleman". Earp, on the other hand, "was head of band of desperadoes, a partner in stage robbers, and a friend of gamblers and professional killers... Wyatt was the boss killer of the region."
Former nemesis Johnny Behan continued to spread rumors about the Earps for the next twenty years. On December 7, 1897, he was quoted in a story in the Washington Post, reprinted by the San Francisco Call, describing the Earp's lawbreaking behavior in Tombstone. After referring to the Fitzimmons-Sharkey fight, the article quoted Behan: "The Clanton brothers and the McLowrys were a tough lot of rustlers who were the main perpetrators of the rascally rife in that region. Between them and Earps rose a bitter feud over the division of the proceeds of the looting. The Earp boys believed they had failed to get a fair divide of the booty and swore vengeance. They caught their former allies in Tombstone unarmed and shot three of them dead while their hands were uplifted." Behan went on to say, "They were hauled up before a Justice of the Peace... Warrants were issued for their arrest, and, summoning a posse, I went out to bring the Earps in. They were chased entirely out of the county and Tombstone knew them no more." Earp was parodied in editorial caricatures by newspapers across the country. Behan lambasted the Earps as the bad men who had attacked the cowboys until he died in 1912.
Four days after the fight in San Francisco, Alfred H. Lewis in the New York Journal claimed to have been a neighbor of the Earps in Tombstone. He mangled basic facts including family members' names. He wrote that Ike Clanton had married Earp's sister "Jessie" and that Wyatt had killed his own brother in law. He claimed they "were famed in Tombstone and in the Cochise country round about as qualified to pull and make a center shot in less than one-tenth of a second." They "were prone to 'fanning' their pistols in a fight, whereby a Colt six-shooter becomes for the nonce a miniature Gatling." According to Lewis, Virgil and Wyatt formed a faction of stage robbers "who stood up stages and plundered express companies for a livelihood... After a robbery, the Earps made further money, enlisting themselves with a posse comitatus and chasing themselves." The story was re-run by multiple newspapers across the United States.
After Earp left Alaska in 1901, the New York Sun printed a story in 1903 that described a confrontation Earp had reportedly had with a short 5-foot Cockney Canadian Mountie, who embarrassed Earp by demanding that he leave his weapon in his room. The story was reprinted as far away as New Zealand by the Otago Witness. The Dawson Record commented on the story, mocking the newspaper as a "venerable dispenser of truth".
On Oct 29, 1905, the Bisbee Daily Review reported on Virgil Earp's death: "Virgil Earp, who belonged to the noted Earp gang which was a terror to the peaceable citizens of Tombstone... was considered the most dangerous man of the Earp gang and was a dead shot with a revolver or rifle."
On April 13, 1921, the Arizona Republican ran a lengthy interview with Thomas Raines, a former resident of Tombstone. Raines described the gunfight as an ambush. He said that he remembered the Earps shot the Cowboys and killed Ike Clanton (when they actually killed his brother Billy) before the Cowboys had a chance to surrender. He recalled that the Cowboys "were leading their horses out of the gate when they were confronted, almost from ambush, by four of the Earps: Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan and Jim, and by Doc Holliday. Virgil Earp, armed with a sawed-off express shotgun, and accompanying his demand with profanity, yelled "Hands up!" But he didn't wait for the action demanded and shot almost as soon as he spoke. Tom McLowery showed his empty bands, and cried. 'Gentlemen, I am unarmed.' Holliday answered with the discharge of his shotgun. Ike Clanton fell at the first fire, mortally wounded, but he rolled over and fired two shots from his pistol between his bent knees."
During 1922 Frederick R. Bechdolt published the book When the West Was Young, which included a story about Wyatt's time in Tombstone, but he mangled many basic facts. He described the Earp-Clanton differences as the falling-out of partners in crime.Bechdolt, Frederick R. (1922) When the West was Young The Century Company
On March 12, 1922, the Sunday Los Angeles Times ran a short, scandalous article titled "Lurid Trails Are Left by Olden-Day Bandits" by J.M. Scanland. It described Wyatt and his brothers as a gang, comparable to the Dalton Gang, who waylaid the cowboys in the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. It said that the Earps were allies of Frank Stilwell, who had informed on them, so they killed him, and that Earp had died in Colton, California.
The author concocted a fictional description of the Earp's relationship with Sheriff Behan and the Cowboys:
Josephine and Earps' friend and actor William Hart both wrote letters to the publisher. Josephine demanded that the error "must be corrected and printed in the same sensational manner" given to the correction as to the original article, which the paper published.
Reputation at death
Wyatt was repeatedly criticized in the media over the remainder of his life. His wife Josephine wrote, "The falsehoods that were printed in some of the newspapers about him and the unjust accusations against him hurt Wyatt more deeply than anything that ever happened to him during my life with him, with the exception of his mother's death and that of his father and brother, Warren."
At the time of his death, Earp may have been more well known for the controversy that engulfed him after the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey match in San Francisco than for the gunfight in Tombstone. His Associated Press obituary gave prominent attention to his officiating of the Fitzsimmons-Sharkey fight, while describing him as a "gun-fighter whose blazing six-shooters were, for most of his life, allied with the side of law and order".
In its January 14, 1929, obituary, the Los Angeles Times wrote a fictional account of Earp's taming Colton, California:
Modern reputation Long after his death, Earp has many remained a controversial figure, with both critics and admirers. In popular culture and some historical accounts, he has been portrayed as one of the most formidable gunfighters of the Old West.
Walter Noble Burns Author Walter Noble Burns visited Earp in September 1926 and asked him questions with the intent to write a book about Earp. Earp declined because he was already collaborating with John Flood. Burns visited Tombstone and based on what he learned decided instead to focus his book on Doc Holliday. He pestered Earp for facts, and on March 27 the next year, Earp finally responded to Burns' repeated requests in an 11-page letter outlining the basic facts from Earp's point of view.
When their efforts to get the Flood manuscript published failed, the Earps decided to appeal to Burns, whose own book was near publication. But he was not interested. His book was about to be published, free of the constraints imposed by a collaboration with Earp. Burns wrote them, "I should not now care to undertake another book which, in part at least, would be upon much the same lines... I should have been delighted six months ago to accept your offer but it is too late now. My book has championed Mr. Earp's cause throughout and I believe will vindicate his reputation in Tombstone in a way that he will like." When Burns turned them down, Josephine actively worked to stop the publication of his book, fearful that their efforts to publish Wyatt's biography would be thwarted as a result.