The debate between Wyatt Earp (1994) and Tombstone (1993)

Which of the two is more accurate?

This is a question that I’ve seen asked over and over for many years on discussion boards and on Facebook. I used to see the question asked regularly on the IMDb message boards while they were still active. Unfortunately, the discussion never really involves any real logical debate but instead it’s usually just casting a vote for a person’s preference. And of course there is nothing wrong with whatever a person prefers, they’re both good movies with good qualities, but when we present the question and hinge it on the element of accuracy, are we really answering the question?

The first thing that should be understood is that you’re not comparing two movies of the same topic, though at first glance it’s understandable why the comparison is made. This is usually the first mistake when people want to debate this. Tombstone is a movie about the town of Tombstone and the troubles it had from its boom in 1879 to the relative end of the cowboy threat in 1882. Wyatt Earp, on the other hand, is a story about an individual who lived in the Old West and played a key role in several events of that time. So, right off the bat, we have to be clear in understanding that one movie is about a place, a town, a community, and a series of events; while the other is about a man and the study of his life and personal timeline.

Obviously, Wyatt Earp is central to the telling of his own story, so of course it makes sense that he is front and center. Wyatt arrived in Tombstone with his brother Virgil in 1879, and was key in many of the events that transpired there involving the Cowboys and general outlawry. He is a natural key element of that saga, as well, but we have to be discerning and recognize that while the Wyatt Earp movie is about Wyatt Earp, the Tombstone movie is about many people, Wyatt just being one of them. So with the Wyatt Earp movie we need elements pertinent to Wyatt Earp’s life, and in Tombstone the key is to have elements that are pertinent to the town…not necessarily to Wyatt Earp, the man.

One of the common complaints I hear about Tombstone from those who prefer Wyatt Earp is that Tombstone did not feature Warren and James, the other two Earp brothers. And one of the common complaints about the movie Wyatt Earp, from those who prefer Tombstone, is that the Tombstone outlaws, such as Curly Bill and especially Johnny Ringo, hardly get any consideration and are merely background characters. These are certainly legitimate and noticeable absences, but at the same time there is some valid reason for these varying approaches.

In the movie Tombstone, remembering that the movie is not about Wyatt but about the town and the cowboy troubles, Warren and James did not play significant roles. James was present tending bar at Vogan’s bowling alley, but he was not a combatant, and very rarely was ever involved in the heated troubles. Warren was involved a bit towards the latter part of the Earps time in town, and was a part of the vendetta ride, but he wasn’t present for a lot of the troubles, and most significantly he was not in town when the street fight happened.

Then when we look at the movie Wyatt Earp we see that we get healthy doses of both Warren and James, but we don’t get much understanding of Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo and the rest of the Arizona outlaws. We get the gunfight at the OK corral, as it’s called, but yet we don’t get the same background that we do from Tombstone, and to some this is a big disappointment.

When we keep in mind what each movie is trying to focus on, then we can better understand what is brought into focus on the screen, as well as why it’s really a fool’s errand to try to compare accuracy. Looking first at Tombstone, and the issue of being short a couple of brothers, we have to understand that the writer and director have a limited amount of time to present all the important elements that existed. If they were to tell the story of Tombstone and not give the audience a great understanding, and a well-rounded picture of characters like Curly Bill Brocious and Johnny Ringo, then we’d be shortchanged. These fellas were extremely key to everything that happened in Tombstone at that time. The Earp brothers Warren and James, while in town and close with Wyatt, Virgil, and Morgan, were not key to the events as they transpired. Essentially, one has to act ask, does the absence of James and Warren compromise the understanding of the Tombstone troubles? Clearly the answer is: it does not. The story can still be told, and understood, without getting into Warren and James’ presence in town.

With Wyatt Earp we have the scope of 80 years centralized on one man’s life. The gunfight at the OK corral is very important in understanding Wyatt Earp, but the involvements of Curly Bill and Johnny Ringo, and their thieving activities, is not as crucial to understanding Wyatt Earp as it is to understanding the town of Tombstone in the early 1880s. I think it would be great if we could have more fleshing out of the Arizona outlaws, but I understand them not being a central focus in a story about Wyatt Earp when family was so important to him. We needed James and Warren in the movie Wyatt Earp more than we did in Tombstone, because in this study of the man we get a better picture of his relationship with his brothers and family, in general.

I use the example of the brothers involvement in Wyatt Earp, and the outlaws involvement in Tombstone to underscore the fact that these movies can’t be compared one-to-one. Wyatt Earp contains so much more time that it will naturally involve many elements that don’t have any place in the movie Tombstone, and the movie Tombstone is such an acute focus on such a short period of time and such a relatively small location, that it naturally would not include elements that are not germane to the story. This principle applies to more than just this sample, but can be used when looking at many of the two movies differences.

Each movie has a lot of great qualities, and any fan of the Old West, and especially of Wyatt Earp and the Tombstone saga, has a lot to enjoy from both movies, but when comparing the two, the comparisons should be based around personal enjoyment and the elicited emotional response; not the accuracy of two things with an inconsistent tether.

The Revisionist Era of Westerns

The Revisionist Era may not have had an official start date, but it was basically when Hollywood started reassessing the way it looked at westerns. Traditionally, we knew who the good guy was, we knew what he was fighting for, and we knew he was going to win. Eventually the formula ran cold and we started getting stories where we didn’t know who was the good guy, or who was going to win; revenge became a driving motivator, replacing the good-ol’ pursuit of justice.

Out of this movement we got leads who were more and more jaded, who handled women however they wanted, and at it’s pinnacle we saw the most revered names of the gunfighter era dragged through the mud in attempt to “take the shine off”, as so many like to brag about when approaching the old west. Examples are “Doc” and “Dirty Little Billy”; each a blatant rewrite of history, intentionally skewed in order to serve a purpose of this “new vision” that satisfied the mood of the time. Which, of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the political overtones of the films that tied to the political activities of the country at that point in the countries history. I have no interest in getting into the politics of these movies, but it is an unavoidable part of this revisionist era of westerns. Another major aspect of the revisionist time was the Spaghetti Western. These films perfected the grizzled, S.O.B as lead character.

This era was, for the most part, initiated in the 60’s, peaking in the 70’s, and continuing into the 80’s. By film school standards even today’s movies are widely considered revisionist simply because they weren’t the classic good-guy formula of the oaters era. And for the purposes of this site, I separate the movies with the release of Young Guns in 1988. Most everything from Young Guns forward will be classified in the “Modern Era”, but that’s explained on it’s own page.

The Revisionist Era brought about many other nuanced labels such as modernist westerns, deconstructionist westerns, anti-westerns, and even acid westerns and red westerns. I have no interest in diving into the dynamics that separate each of these labels, or what makes them worthwhile; I’m only interested in if it’s a western or not. The intent of this blog is not to be a college course on western film, it’s a simple place to have fun with men wearing guns and riding horses.

In 1961 Marlon Brando’s movie One-Eyed Jacks was released, and this film is widely considered the start of the revisionist era. This was because, as was referenced just a moment ago, the lines of good and bad were not easily identified. While this was truly a different perspective for the western genre, it’s created a bit of a problem. Sixty years later pretty much every western that comes out is classed as a revisionist western. If 60 years of westerns all deserve to be labeled revisionist, then what does revisionist even mean anymore?

If we’re being honest then we should acknowledge that “revisionist“ meant using the western as allegory for contemporary climates. Westerns can always, and often do, reflect the attitudes and morals of our country; it is practically what they are made for. But 1993’s Tombstone, and 1971’s Doc do not belong in the same sub-category of western. They just aren’t the same type of film at all, primarily using the directors intent as our gauge.

I think we see a definite turn in the mid-to-late 80’s in regards to how westerns were being presented, and this was due to a decline in the revisionist tones that were so prevalent in the previous decade, and I’d like to see a new term being applied to the movies that came later in response to this shift.

Here’s how I see it:

–>Up to the 50’s, Good guy was clearly a good guy; the white hat era

–> 60’s & 70’s; Good guy wasn’t really a good guy; a social counter to the mythologizing of previous heroes

–> Late 80’s to today; Good guy wasn’t all good or all bad, but a human who should be studied to be understood; an attempt to stabilize an overreaction from the previous era

Today’s Leading Men of Westerns

Much to the chagrin of today’s lovers of the old west, Western movies just aren’t as prolific as they once were. Gone are the days of guys like John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart who could craft a whole career solely on westerns if they wanted to. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t great western actors in our own time who have done enough to leave a mark on the western movie terrain.

This article is a fun look at some of the fellas over the last thirty or so years who have taken a turn or two at playing a gun-toting, horse-riding, man-of-the-frontier. There is no order to it; this isn’t a click bait countdown, it’s just a fun accounting of what I wish there was more of.

KURT RUSSELL   Why not start with Kurt Russell? He hasn’t played in the most westerns, but after making a tremendous stamp on western movies as Wyatt Earp in 1993’s Tombstone, he returned to the genre in recent years, starring in Bone Tomahawk and the Hateful Eight. Couple that with a couple movies he did as a young man called the Longest Drive 1 and 2, and he’s certainly done enough to be considered a western movie favorite for today.

KEVIN COSTNER   And since we’re already focused on Wyatt Earp, let’s take a look at Kevin Costner. He took his turn at the lawman of renown just a year after Russell, and this was already after proving himself in Dances with Wolves just four years previous. In addition, Costner had done some teeth-cutting in Silverado in 1985, so his career was already showing a bent towards the western genre. In more recent years Costner featured in the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s on History Channel, helping to get the project made, and showing his heart for the old timey topics. However, the best role of his career, and the one that proves his worth as a western hero more than any other was in Open Range. Arguably one of the better westerns ever made, Costner shows he could easily make a living playing nothing but a gunman from the west, whether he chose to or not.

JEFF BRIDGES    On the heels of Open Range there has been a very modest proliferation of relatively big-budget westerns. One of the more acclaimed was the Coen brothers’ True Grit of 2010. This movie really puts Jeff Bridges into the category of a modern western leading man. He did a great job as Rooster Cogburn, and did an equally wonderful job as Wild Bill Hickok in 1995. Those two roles put him on the  frontier map, but they’re anchored by the movies Bad Company (1972) and Hearts of the West (1975) when he was still a new actor on the scene, as well as with the modern-setting western Hell or High Water. Five movies with two very significant roles (Rooster & Wild Bill) definitely earn him recognition, but in a fun turn, we can cap him off with his portrayal in R.I.P.D., where he plays an old west marshal six-gunning against some unruly dead folks.

SAM ELLIOTT      Sam Elliott stands out as the most prolific western actor of recent years. He got his start in westerns and has remained a go-to whenever a believable western man is needed. Rather than recount his resume with whimsical verbiage, I’ll simply post his record and let the reader sift through the evidence: The Sacketts (1979), Wild Times (1980), Shadow Riders (1982), Yellow Rose (TV Show, 1983), Houston: The Legend of Texas (1986), Quick  and the Dead (1987), Conagher (1991), Gettysburg (1993), Tombstone (1993), The Desperate Trail (1994), Buffalo Girls (1995), The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky (1995), Rough Riders (1997), Big Lebowski (1998), Hi-Lo Country (Modern, 1998), You Know My Name (1999), The Ranch (TV Show, 2016). Yes, that’s right, I included the Big Lebowski. No, it’s not a western, but it’s significant that in that movie Elliott plays the conscious of the western pioneering spirit, juxtaposed against the lazy, jaded attitudes of today’s Los Angeles.

TOM SELLECK    Recollecting some of Elliott’s films such as Sacketts & Shadow Riders brings to mind another western stalwart who is deeply under appreciated. The man of the mighty mustache,…Tom Selleck. Only Elliott has done more westerns than Selleckand likewise, Tom Selleck has peppered his whole career with the genre, consistently showing up on film in boots and cowboy hat, from the Sacketts in 1979, to Monte Walsh in 2003. My only complaint being that he needs to take a break from Jesse Stone to do another western or two; it’s about time! And, as with Sam Elliott, I’ll just post the list for the reader: Sacketts (1979), Concrete Cowboys (1981, TV Show), Shadow Riders (1982), Quigley Down Under (1990), Ruby Jean & Joe (Modern 1996), Last Stand at Saber River (1997), Crossfire Trail (2001) Monte Walsh (2003), Twelve Mile Road (Modern, 2003).

TOMMY LEE JONES & ROBERT DUVALL    I think it’s probably about time to acknowledge the godfathers of modern western cinema, Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. The recognition for Lonesome Dove is probably enough for either of these two to be held in the esteem in which they are, but each have made a nice collection of westerns throughout their careers, and are every bit deserving of the regard they are given.

JONES    Starting with Tommy Lee Jones, who proved himself well, atop a horse and on the trail, in Lonesome Dove. He had done a western just a year before in Stranger On My Land, but really cements himself as a western lead with Good Ol’ Boys in 1995 and The Homesman in 2014. You can add to this great handful The Missing in 2003, and the modern western movies Three Burials and No Country For Old Men.

DUVALL    And now we can focus on Robert Duvall, who, given his role as Gus McRae, is probably this generations John Wayne when it comes to the hearts of todays western fan. Perhaps Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday is a rival in popularity, based on his sheer hipness, but Gus McRae stands out as the western-man’s man. And after adding to his western film resume, he returned to the trail-riding role that made him so endearing in 2006’s Broken Trail, which was an exceptional trail riding yarn in it’s own right. And, of equal worth, was his role as Boss Spearman in Open Range. It’s just hard to beat Robert Duvall when it comes to western portrayals. And finally, in order, here’s his list of western movies: Lonesome Dove (1989), Convicts (1991), Geronimo (1993), Gods & Generals (2003), Open Range (2003), Broken Trail (2006), A Night in Old Mexico (Modern, 2013) Wild Horses (Modern, 2015). Keep in mind that this is a relatively modern collection and doesn’t take into consideration movies and TV appearances he made in the ’60’s.

************

There are a couple other steadfast actors who need a mention, and they are Gene Hackman and Ed Harris. Hackman for his standout role in Unforgiven, and Ed Harris for his equally impressive turn in Appaloosa.

GENE HACKMAN    Hackman has rounded out his western resume with early career films Zandy’s Bride (1974), and Bite the Bullett (1975), and then returned to the genre in the early 90’s with zest, pumping out four westerns in four years: Unforgiven (1992), Geronimo (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), and The Quick and the Dead (1995),

ED HARRIS    Ed Harris, conversely of most others mentioned in the article, came to westerns generally later on in his career. His first was Riders of the Purple Sage in 1996 and he didn’t do another for twelve years when he starred in Appaloosa. After doing a couple more, Sweetwater (2013) and Frontera (2014), he showed up in HBO’s West World in 2016. Appaloosa is certainly the highlight of the group, but it’s great to see him doing more in the genre recently.

************

And what about the ever-reliable “worthy-of-mention” category? Let’s take a look.

Kiefer Sutherland started early with a prominent role as Josiah “Doc” Scurlock in Young Guns (1988) and Young Guns 2 (1990). He was next seen representing the modern rodeo cowboy in The Cowboy Way (1994) and Cowboy Up (Modern, 2001). Then, in 2015, he participated in a bit of a passion project with his real life father, Donald, playing his onscreen father in the movie Forsaken. His career may not be dominantly western, but it’s great to see him getting back to the western in recent years, and taking such an active part in getting it done.

Val Kilmer is certainly a fan favorite after becoming the face of new westerns for a whole generation in 1993. His Doc Holliday in Tombstone is easily the slickest gun-toter to be on film, and it, alone, makes him a worthy western actor. He also starred in Gore Vidal’s Billy the Kid in 1989, and then made a small western comeback with Comanche Moon (2008) and  Wyatt Earp’s Revenge (2012). It’d be great to see him take on another role to rival his Doc Holliday, but that would, admittedly, be tough to top.

Perhaps the most under-the-radar young-ish western actor of today is Berry Pepper. He’s’ appeared in two Lonesome Dove outputs, Lonesome Dove: the Series (1995), and Lonesome Dove: the Outlaw Years (1996),  as well as Three Burials (Modern, 2005), True Grit (2010), and Lone Ranger (2013).  Not only does he boast a robust handful of western films, but he’s in good company, too. In Three Burials he co-starred with Tommy Lee Jones, in True Grit he shared the screen with Jeff Bridges, and though Lone Ranger was not the highest reviewed, it was a very big budget movie. On top of these, even though he was not a part of the original Lonesome Dove series, it’s a great studio property to be a part of.

Finally, Viggo Mortensen, Thomas Haden Church, and Ethan Hawke each deserve a look. Mortensen got his first western role in Young Guns 2, and then later did the movie Hidalgo in 2004. Though not a true western, he still played a cowboy in the 1890’s. His most defining western role was as Everett Hitch in Appaloosa, alongside Ed Harris. Thomas Hayden Church has only done two westerns to date, but they’re good ones to be in. First playing Billy Clanton in Tombstone, and then starring with Robert Duvall in Broken Trail. Some have criticized his stiffness in the latter of the two movies, but considering that most cowboys were hard working roughnecks, and not camp cut-ups, his performance comes off appropriately stoic. The  final entry is perhaps the last name one might expect, but given his new avenue towards westerns, including three western movies in two years, it’s nice to see this turn in direction. Ethan Hawke first starred in A Valley of Violence in 2016, a spaghetti-western styled film, then co-featured in the recent remake of The Magnificent 7, and is slated to star in a movie about a kid who witnesses the encounter between Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, conveniently titled The Kid.

************

Lawmen and Their Rankings

The purpose of this post is to help clear up what I suspect is an area of confusion for most enthusiasts of the Old West. You may notice when hearing or reading stories of the characters in Old West towns, or rather particularly those in positions of law, being referred to by different titles. You may hear Sheriff Masterson or Marshall Earp, etc., and sometimes these titles may feel like some sort of an ambiguous blend of the same role. So I wanted to give sort of a cheat sheet for anyone who was trying to figure out the differences between the different titles.

There are some pretty obvious titles and then there’s a few that are a little less common. Anytime you watch a western you will inevitably hear somebody say, “go get the sheriff”, or “Someone get the Marshal”, with no real indication of what that means. In a fictional movie or television show it probably doesn’t matter too much, but when we’re trying to learn about the real law men, it helps to know what the titles mean and what the distinctions are, and most importantly, what value those titles really held.

From top to bottom, probably the most powerful position would be that of a U.S. Marshal. Below that would be the sheriff, then a city, town, or village marshal. Underneath that you would have a deputy marshal, and then you would have positions such as constable or night watchman.

The US Marshal appellation is a little bit of a misnomer because when a lawman was referred to as a U.S. Marshal the conventional use was justifiable, even though in reality he was a deputy US Marshal. An actual US Marshal was a figurehead who most often sat in a state or territory capital and functioned more as a chief of police, dealing with politicians and bureaucrats. This US Marshal had the authority to pick and assign Deputy US Marshals who did all of the field work and law enforcement in a given territory. So, for example, when Virgil Earp was a marshal in Tombstone he arrived there as a US Deputy Marshal. Yet, when someone said Marshal Earp in reference to Virgil, they would be accurate in calling him Marshal, keeping in mind he was technically a deputy of the Arizona territory US Marshal.

This position of US Marshal that was held by Virgil and Wyatt, at different times, as well as other characters of the West, had the ability most often to also deputize another level of assistance. (Although this is not a term that’s ever been used, you could say sort of a deputy’s deputy.) What this means is if, say, Wyatt Earp was a US Marshal and out in the field hunting down Cowboys, then if he needed assistance, he was able to recruit someone and give them a field appointment. This field appointment allowed someone to operate in a legal capacity with the US Marshal, who was technically a deputy US Marshal. This is what is going on when you hear the term marshal being thrown around.

Now let’s look at what a sheriff what does, what Sheriff means, and what were his boundaries? The sheriff worked for the county. Whereas a US Marshal had jurisdiction over the entirety of the state or territory that he was in, a sheriff was bound to the borders of the county that he served. Bat Masterson is a perfect example of this. He served as the sheriff of Ford County in Kansas, which is also where Dodge city was located. As the sheriff he handled crimes that were committed in the county but not in the municipality of Dodge City. However, as a sheriff operating in a jurisdiction that contained a town (obviously), he could be duly expected to give a hand whenever it was needed. Not to mention, of course, that his friendship with Wyatt Earp would naturally lead to assistance when one needed it from the other. And like most all other positions of law enforcement, the sheriff would often have deputies who would operate within the same jurisdiction. When in a town, the sheriff was expected to acquiesce to the municipal authorities; he could be expected to help out, but was likewise expected to not get in the way of the local authorities to handle issues.*

What of the municipal authorities? A town, city, or Village lawman usually went by the title of marshal. A town marshal, or a village Marshall, or a city marshal was really only differentiated by the size of the municipality; a village obviously being smaller than a city, and a town being somewhere in between. The town Marshal had authority within the city boundaries and was expected and obligated to handle the legal duties within that town. This often meant not just stopping crime or going after criminals like horse thieves and such, but could also mean collecting taxes, collecting fees, and other whatnot. This position often held a great opportunity for bonuses based on arrests and services rendered, so it could be a lucrative position. It is important to remember that when someone says marshal they could be referring to a state or territory marshal who was appointed by the US Marshal out of the capital, or they could be referring to a local marshal, who could have been appointed by a council or voted on by the people. Most often, however, a town marshal was appointed by a council.

Another position that’s often mentioned, but not nearly as prominent as others, is that of constable. The reason we don’t hear so much about constables being involved in one exciting story or another is the fact that, frankly, most of the stories that we hear over and over are the more thrilling ones and the position of constable just didn’t lend itself to thrilling adventures. As constable you were generally expected to deliver court papers, collect taxes, deliver summons, serve notices, etc. You may be the head law man in a town as constable, but generally speaking, if that were the case then it was probably a pretty small town and not one that had a lot of excitement. Typically, by the time a town was big enough to be wary of much danger and excitement, they would probably have already established a town marshal or have a resident Sheriff. The Constable was almost more of a clerk-of-the-court position, working primarily as an aid to the courthouse. So, while you will hear of a constable mentioned once in a while, it’s very seldom that you will hear of a town constable being involved in a dramatic gunfight.

The last couple of titles probably aren’t special enough to consider whether one ranks above the other; they are night watchman and special police. We’ll start with special police because it probably is a more glamorous position than night Watchman. A special-police was someone who was in law enforcement but not typically as a full-time career. The best example of this would be Dodge City during the cattle season. During the winter the local marshal may need a deputy or two, but during the cattle season when the town is overrun with Cowboys drunk and partying all night, there would be a need for extra enforcement, so special policemen were signed on for the season. You may sign a couple in May at the start of the season, and by June you may have an additional half dozen. During the thick of this time it would be all-hands-on-deck at all different hours, but then as the season waned in the later months the special police would be let go as they became less necessary. You won’t often hear about policeman so-and-so when reading about the old west, but you may come across something that says Morgan Earp was a special policeman in Dodge City during the season of 76, or other items like that. So when you hear this in reference to a character you’ll know it means that, yes, he was in law enforcement, but it was probably only for a limited time where extra enforcement was needed.

Probably the lowest position of law enforcement in the old west, but also possibly the best way to get your foot in the door if you didn’t have a good reputation as an army Scout, or Buffalo hunter, or general tough guy, was a position as night Watchman. With all due respect to the men who served as night watchman, this position wasn’t much more than the modern day security guard in an orange vest standing around at the local bus station. Generally your position as a night watchman was to stroll the streets at night and make sure nobody was passed out drunk on the sidewalk, or that wild dogs weren’t chewing up somebody’s sacks of flour sitting out front of their store; that sort of thing. There wasn’t a lot expected of a night watchmen as long as you were on the job. Essentially, they were meant to be a presence, or a deterrent to anyone who might do something stupid as they’re stumbling out of the local saloon drunk and done for the evening. Virgil Earp served as a night watchmen in Prescott, and it was basically how he earned a step up to constable.

Any of these head positions, such as US Marshal, Sheriff, and Town Marshal all had deputies. So you could be a deputy, a field deputy to a US Marshal. You could be a deputy sheriff, which could be a full-time position, or you could be a town deputy, which could also be a full-time position, and of course the role of deputy is pretty self-explanatory once you know the head position that they serve under.
These are the primary lawman titles, and a lot of the most fascinating men of the old west held them. They weren’t always held by good guys and even the “good guys” who held the positions were sometimes suspected of utilizing the position to their own personal ends.**

*This dynamic was at the center of one of the big struggles in the town of Tombstone.
**Wyatt Earp has been accused of this, fairly or not, by many of his detractors.

 

In order of prominence

• US Marshal – Operating authority throughout a state or territory
• Sheriff – Authority for a given county within a state or territory
• Town Marshal – The local ranking officer within a municipalities boundaries
• Special Police – Hired for special services, or limited time work; often for a season
• Constable – Most commonly a hand of the local court, minimal law enforcement
• Night Watchman – Security guard to make sure there’s no trouble

New Wyatt Earp TV Show

Travis Fimmel, who played Ragnar Lothbrok on History Channel’s Vikings, has made his departure and is ready to take on new projects. This has resulted in a potential Wyatt Earp anthology show to be produced, starring Fimmel, who has also pitched the show and is helping to get it made. There are no dates set yet, though the latest guesses have it looking like it could start production as soon as he completes a current short-film project he’s working on. It’s important to keep in mind that many shows and movies are bandied about and then die a slow death before ever being made into something real. Fimmel has good relationships with History Channel and those behind the scenes there, so the prognosis is on the positive side of things, but until production starts and cameras are rolling, we have to simply wait with fingers crossed.

The idea, as reported so far, is to introduce Wyatt Earp to the western frontier, primarily in Kansas, and especially in Dodge city. The show will build to the events of the Tombstone shootout and be a work up about how the man came to be who he was, and how he came to that moment. Along the way there will be focus on the people in Wyatt’s life and the associations he held. Friendships with fellow dangerous men like Bat and Doc will be included, and, with a little luck, perhaps we could even see a screen version of Luke Short.

There’s a couple of pluses and minuses that can be assessed even at this early stage. For one, Travis Fimmel has a good look for Wyatt Earp. I haven’t seen him with a swooping mustache yet, but just his eyes and general face shape seem to belie a touch of the stoic gunman. He has expressed his reasons for wanting to see this made, and while I don’t know that it qualifies as a “passion project”, he does carry some level of personal interest in seeing it get done, and that can keep the fires burning for a sustained period of time, rather than seeing it smoke out right away. In short, Fimmel’s participation as both actor and producer should help to make this produced and be decent quality.

On the flip side of things, Hollywood seems to never really understand history, and when they don’t understand history they seem to think they can hide the fact by filling in with lots of cheesy tropes that they think are true to the time. The show is planned to be a History Channel project, so this can offer some hope, but even History Channel sometimes seems to be remiss at presenting accurate history. Additionally, everyone seems to have their own take on Wyatt Earp. This is because he was a fairly complex man who lived a complex life. Some will say that he was a thief and pimp, others will argue that he was an upright officer who valued life. Most all would be able to back up their conviction with solid evidence. Like I say, it was a complex life.

Where this element of complexity becomes an issue is when people try to tell the tale. Too often Wyatt is either unfairly vilified, or unaccountably praised. It’s true that in life he was much more often on the side of right, but it’s become the more contemporary trend to sensationalisticly pick over the darker periods of the mans life and slap the label of bad guy on him. The reason this is relevant to this show is because Fimmel states his reason for wanting to do this project is that he is fascinated by peoples scandalous journey’s into infamy. This sounds like a predisposed notion to cast Earp as a villain, and we don’t need another “Doc” (1972).

It’s still very early, so no judgments should be made at this point, but to do justice to a complex man living a complex life it would be best to avoid pre-labeling him as one thing or another. Fimmel said he’s fascinated by the journey, so let’s hope that means they really investigate it and do it intelligently, and fairly.

Reading Wyatt Earp

Given that there are more books about Wyatt Earp and his world than there are about any other frontier gun-man, it can be difficult choosing which books to start with, which ones to add to your personal library, or even which ones to trust. I wont be tackling each of the many potential lines of inquiry in this post, but we’ll start with where to start with Wyatt Earp.

One of the reasons there are so many books on the life and travels of Wyatt Earp is because there was so much variation in his life with differing purposes. If you thought the first reason I was going to mention was because of all the disagreement among biographers, then you’re already familiar with the Earp field of study, I would have to assume. And though their is plenty of debate and bickering among researchers, it’s not something to wade into for this article.

Wyatt’s life could be broken up into several different eras, which is probably true of most lives worth a biography, but the fact that Wyatt lived so long opens up that many more avenues of study than the typical western gun-hand or lawman. With out getting too specific, we could say there was his youth traveling with his family and in California, his days on the frontier as a Buffalo Hunter, Bouncer, and Lawman, or his California based years as a speculator-capitalist, or his L.A. years as a prospector up until his death. And even in these brackets of time, there are still plenty more arteries to venture down.

This brings us to the subject of this post, and where to start with reading. There are two assumptions that I’ll make regarding this topic: one, that the average enthusiast is more interested in Wyatt’s time as a lawman, engaging in daring entanglements, and two, that looking online for books on Wyatt Earp boggles a persons mind and makes their eyes go crossed. Taking these into consideration, I offer forth what I consider to be the best starting point for someone who wants to study Wyatt Earp. (Please note that I am intentional in the use of the term study, and not meaning a casual one-book venture before moving on to a different topic all-together.)

There are four books that I would strongly suggest be the basis of a Wyatt Earp student’s book collection. I’ll list them in order, and explain the reasoning behind each.

 

Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart Lake

People love to bash on this book and call it a fictional tale. The problem that I fear will happen is that new readers to the field will dismiss it thinking themselves one of the gullible masses for having indulged it. But you simply cannot study the life of Wyatt Earp without having first read Lake. There is a lot of discrediting of the book that goes on and some of that has been well founded and deserved, but with even further research, much of Lake’s account has been proven true, with primary thanks to the indefatigable efforts put in by author/researcher Lee Silva, who will be mentioned again later.

Lake’s book is certainly due its fact-checking, and there are some things he got wrong, but keep in mind that his primary source died early on in the development of the project. On top of that he was working in a time without internet, or easy phone calling and records like we have today. The very fact of how much the Lake Notes at the Huntington Library are referenced by today’s researchers shows how much value his work holds. The main fault against Lake is that he invented dialogue attributed to Wyatt, who was known widely for his laconic nature.

But because of, and in spite of, all this, Stuart Lake’s Frontier Marshal is a seminal work in the Earp arena. Essentially everything that comes after, whether in support or in contrast, is a branching out from the tale first told by Lake. It is also, if for no other reason, a very enjoyable read. What it lacks in footnotes and documentational support, it balances with an enjoyable tone and compelling wording. Make this the first book in your start to knowing Wyatt Earp.

 

Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend by Casey Tefertiller

Tefertiller’s book is probably the most prolific book of the new era of Earp research. Much of the book corrects the record on what Stuart Lake had gotten wrong, and with accurate well-researched information, he expounds on what was first recorded by Lake and others. When I had first read this book, I loved it and certainly learned tons, but it also made me realize that I had to read Lake before I really fully understood everything. So I read Frontier Marshal and then re-read Life Behind the Legend.

Tefertiller has proven himself to be level, fair, and understanding of the world he reports on. There is no agenda with his book, aside from straightening out the record where it’s warranted. He takes you through the early years and up to the end. The bulk of the book is very Tombstone heavy, however, and so what came before the Tombstone days, and after it, is not as in depth as Lee Silva, but is a very good book for getting a full story picture of Wyatt Earp, substantiated by all the footnotes and sources a person could hope for. After reading Lake and Tefertiller, a person should have a pretty good understanding of Wyatt Earp and his life. So let’s move on to the third book you need.

 

Wyatt Earp: A Biography of the Legend by Lee Silva

If you want to be an expert on Wyatt Earp you have to read this book. That is not hyperbole. The only other option is to do the same research that Lee Silva did on your own time; the smart enthusiast is going to go the route of reading what’s already published. What Lee Silva offers is an incredibly in depth look at every little facet of Wyatt Earps life, and the assorted claims and accomplishments. By doing so, he not only gives an amazing understanding of his life, but along the way offers a vindication of sorts for Stuart Lake. Silva breaks down any argument he can and often shows where Lake was coming from, and proves almost absolutely, that even when Stuart Lake was wrong, he wasn’t intentionally so; that everything he wrote he believed in, and had the notes and research to back it up.

This knowledge of Stuart Lake is helpful in the study of Wyatt Earp, but what of the lawman himself? Well, Lee Silva does an amazing job here, too. He deftly shows, time after time, that the claims Wyatt made, often interpreted as bluster by the detractors, were true if just researched deeply enough. Take for example Wyatt’s claim about being one of the men who answered the call to a Camp Cadiz when he was a late teen in Southern California. The anti-earpers have used this as an example of Wyatt making stuff up to inflate his importance, but Silva, through his mastery in research, points out that there was a Camp Cady, often referred to as Cady’s. Then with additional details, shows that Wyatt was much more likely than not telling the truth.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Author Silva then goes through question after question looking for all the info that can be had and makes the case for each conclusion. It is, simply, the most in-depth look at Wyatt’s life and his statements about himself. This overwhelming amount of detail and consideration is why the first volume only covers up to his departure from Dodge headed for Tombstone. And even then the book is almost a thousand pages. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is an invaluable item to have, but it’s also big and hard to come by. Online the average low price you can find it for is about two-hundred and fifty dollars. Take heart though, I found my copy for one-hundred on Abe books. So if you keep an eye out, you might find a more affordable copy. But either way, you need this book; I can’t stress it enough. It was the most fun I’ve had reading any biography or western book.

Wyatt Earp’s Cow-Boy Campaign by Chuck Hornung

Hornung’s book is the most detailed account of what happened following the murder of Morgan Earp. He offers some context, giving a look at all the key players in the Tombstone drama, and then follows with a day-by-day chronology of everything that happened in Tombstone leading up to the explosive finale. After this he makes the case showing how Wyatt operated in ridding the territory of outlaws and safely moving his team out of the country, and back again, all with the help of various authorities.

On this alone the book could probably be considered a must for Earp research, but what Hornung does by extension that is so important is that he doesn’t just lay out some interesting facts. Rather, that the culmination of these facts show Wyatt Earp to have been a lawman working in the scope of the law and working for the benefit of law and order. Some have considered him a lawless assassin seeking revenge. The facts show that he was a strongly supported agent of the law, and this is very crucial to the legacy of Wyatt Earp, and should definitely be read when forming an idea of who Wyatt Earp was and what his life was about.

 

So to sum up, these are the four books that need to be read, and realistically owned if possible, when starting your venture into Earpiana. I would suggest reading them in the order presented here. There are other great books that should also be read, but I will do follow up articles stating what I believe are the value of their contributions and where I think they should be placed in a persons buying order.

Recap:

• Stuart Lake’s Wyatt Earp Frontier Marshal (1931)
• Casey Tefertiller’s Wyatt Earp: the Life Behind the Legend (1997)
• Lee Silva’s Wyatt Earp: A Biography of the Legend vol. 1 The Cowtown Years (2002)
• Chuck Hornung’s Wyatt Earp’S Cow-boy Campaign (2016)

The Downside of Studying the Old West

As I’ve noted before, my love of the old west started with the comic books; reading Rawhide Kid and Kid Colt and Two-Gun Kid. Then there were the road trips and making stops in Deadwood, or Dodge City. These were probably the best years of my young cowboy-loving life. Shortly after this, while I was still young, Young Guns came out, and then Young Guns 2. These movies took everything to a new level for me. Now, I had to learn more. Did Billy really kill twenty-one men? Was he really a bad guy? Was he really a bullied and mis-understood kid?

There was nothing wrong with asking those questions, or discovering new questions to ask. But soon I learned about Wild Bill, and then Wyatt Earp, and then Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, and on and on. With each new gun-hand there was a new life to explore, a new desperate character to try and understand, and following logically, new items to study and learn.

I long since stopped reading the comics as my primary western learning source; I still pick one up for fun once in a while, but they’re no longer my escape in to the old west. Movies were, and are, still a great getaway, but never watched with quite the same wide-eyed awe that they had been before. I now was cognizant of the little nuances that were inaccurate, or perhaps remarkably correct. I wasn’t watching with the same eye of wonderment, but with a slowly transitioning eye of assessment. How did these things reconcile with the truths of western history that I was now more and more becoming knowledgeable of?

None of what I decry is an absolute negative; not by any means. I very much love to research, and I maintain a passion for the west and the time of good guys and bad guys, or slick gunfighters and brave frontiersmen, but something has altered, and that element  is the loss of the genuine fun that it all used to be.

I can’t say that I would turn things back, but I do miss the mystique of the unknown west, or the slightly dreamy façade of the righteous western lawman. The more that is studied and learned, the more that frontier of excitement becomes a landscape of argued knowledge versus proven fact. It may, perhaps, be best to liken the American frontier and todays’ well paved western states, to the path of a little boy playing cowboys and Indians to a research-obsessed man, learning every little detail of Wyatt Earp or Henry Antrim. There’s an excitement and purity in looking out into what we don’t know, and the anticipation of venturing forth to explore that frontier, but once we’ve gone out and learned the land and seen the sights, and made ourselves familiar with what lies beyond our present scope of knowledge, we can’t return to our position of innocence or naïve enjoyment.

I miss what the names Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, Wild Bill and Billy the Kid, used to mean to me. But conversely, I love the comprehensive picture I can now understand; one that includes Dave Mather and Dallas Stoudenmire, and an understanding of the Royal Gorge War, or how John Chisum became so prolific working cattle in the Pecos. I can’t, and don’t want, to take back or lose all I’ve learned, but I also know that I won’t criticize the casual fan, who watches Tombstone or Young Guns and thinks it’s simply just a real good time, or the one who plays Red Dead Redemption and fancies themselves an outlaw or lawman in the mold of the well worn tropes and looks for nothing more. If it brings you joy, then I applaud it. Perhaps some will harken back to the days when we fancied our white-hat heroes, the way the we take a fancy to digging up absolute truths and ugly accuracies about all of our one-time heroes.

 

*The picture used for this post was found on google and not intended to violate any copyright privileges.

A Brief Look at the Towns of the Old West

This post is intended as a preamble for the list of old west towns.

There were a few main types of towns that prospered in the old west. As with most everything in this world, there is a process of building to something, and then there’s the path leading away from that particular moment in time. Towns in the western frontier were unique because they served a point in time that was unique, and just as everything else, there was a reason they were built and a reason that they went the way they did; whatever that direction may have been.

The most commonly thought of towns in the old west were Cow-Towns and Boom-Towns. It’s true that a cow-town could also be a boom-town, but most often they were essentially separate in their proliferations. In addition to these two types we had trail towns and supply towns. A supply town may not be a boom-town/mining camp, but due to it’s proximity, along with helpful attributes, such as being aligned with a well used trail road, the supply town could see prosperity in a symbiotic relationship to the boom-town/mining camp.

One very common locale in the old frontier days that won’t be included were the military forts. Because it is such an in depth element all of it’s own, and the fact that they were military fortifications, not the places of bar-fights and shootouts, we won’t be including it. However, in a dynamic mimicking the coupling of supply town to mining camps, likewise camp-towns often accompanied the military forts of the west.

Very often a town would spring to life along a commonly used trail. At first it may be nothing more than a trading post, then perhaps the addition of another establishment leads it into becoming a small trail town. Then one day the train makes a stop and now it becomes known for foot traffic arriving by rail, and commonly becomes identified as a train stop town. One interesting case in this is El Paso, Texas. The community existed for some time do to it’s crossing from Jaurez, Mexico. It eventually became a prominent travel hub, being setup as a primary route for those traveling to and from Texas to New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado. Yet despite the fact that it was such a center-piece for western travel, it didn’t enjoy the trains arrival until May of 1881, where Marshal Dallas Stoudenmire was present to greet the president of the rail company.

For the sake of a bit of easy clarity, I have distinguished between a cow-town and a cattle town. The cow-town being one that prospered from the arrival of the cow-boys and their cows from Texas (or other locations), and the cattle town being a place that prospered from the sale of cattle. For illustrations sake, San Antonio might be considered a cattle town due to the ranchers who owned and sold cattle en mass, and Dodge City, where the cow-boys drove this cattle and wildly celebrated at the end of the drive, would be referred to as a cow-town.

None of these descriptors are encyclopedic presets, they are merely what I have decided on for my own simplified reference points. There were, of course, other types of towns, such as agriculture communities and others, but since these were very seldom locations that drew the gun-toting element, they are very rarely ever mentioned. An example of this could be Phoenix Arizona, which was planned and plotted along the Gila River for agriculture. With it’s differing origins and purposes from Tucson, Prescott, or Tombstone, it’s not one that’s really ever heard of in the annals of the wild west. (As a side note to Phoenix, if you would like a glimpse at the history of Phoenix from the old days, the only remaining building in the original downtown area stands at 2nd & Washington and serves, presently, as a sports bar/night club.) Wichita started out also as an agricultural community, but once the cattle trade started driving there, it became, primarily, a cow-town. This lasted until the cattle industry ventures migrated elsewhere; which brings around another key factor in the life of western towns.

Very few old west towns went on to prominence. Dodge City has maintained, but never became huge. Phoenix became huge, but was never really an old west stomping ground. Denver could be a rare case where a traditional fighting, gambling, whoring community made good and is still impactful today. But with most of these towns there was a trend that was common. First a community would struggle to attract commerce, then, subsequent efforts to attract people would often bring about a rowdy crowd. These were often the cow-boys, the lawmen, the gamblers, rustlers, and everybody in general who saw a chance to make some money. But these classes of citizens were not the desired bedrock of the community and once a town had attracted what it wanted, it began to filter out what it didn’t. This led to the removal or exiting of many of the colorful western element, and left the towns to go their own course.

Today, we, the historically enthused, chase around after these sacred locales, studying and absorbing what they were and what they are. To get a broad snapshot of what the towns were and a few pertinent details, please refer to the Old West Towns List. You can simply look up a town by name, or scroll through the list. The intent is to give a quick, easy idea of what things looked like. You can look at the census for Deadwood and see how it grew, or compare it to Ogallala and others to get an idea of what the town might have looked like at a time when a certain hombre strolled in. Hopefully with a little context and juxtaposition, a better understanding can be had.