Wyatt Earp-Frontier Hero or Western Thug?

Doc Holliday the Not-So-Deadly Dentist

Ike Clanton: Cowboy and Coward

This past Thursday, November 14th, I had the privilege of hosting New York Times bestselling author (in both fiction AND nonfiction!) Jeff Guinn here in Des Moines as part of the Salisbury House & Gardens History Series.  Jeff was here to talk about his nonfiction book, The Last Gunfight:  The Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral-And How It Changed the American West.  I am the Coordinator of the History Series, and one of the most exciting aspects of my job is that I get to hang out with fascinating writers like Jeff and learn about how they work and think about their biographical subjects.

Jeff is a real Southern gentleman who now lives in Fort Worth, Texas.  He grew up all over the world, in places like Italy, Germany and England, so he has a very broad world-view and an abiding curiosity about history that is contagious.  His approach to many of his nonfiction books has been to take an iconic figure and use them as a window into a particular era or decade.  For instance, Jeff just published The Life and Times of Charles Manson (Simon & Schuster, August, 2013). Manson provided  Jeff with a window into 1960′s counterculture.  Next up for Jeff is a biography of Jim Jones, the cult leader who instigated the Jonestown Massacre in Guyana in November of 1978.  Jones will be a conduit for Jeff’s take on the groovy decade of the 1970s.

For our Thursday night talk here at Salisbury House though, we went even further back in time to Tombstone, Arizona, on the night of Wednesday, October 26, 1881.  Here on the Western frontier, we got to meet the famous Earp brothers; tubercular dentist and gambler, Doc Holliday; and Earp’s soon-to-be common-law wife Josephine.  We also encountered the cowboys who ended up on the wrong side of the Earps’ guns in the Shootout at the O.K. Corral.

Only the Shootout wasn’t at the O.K. Corral-it was in an empty lot NEAR the O.K. Corral!   And the Earps and their gang were not necessarily the All-American heroes that history has decided they were.   Wyatt himself was actually kind of a thug who had worked as a bouncer in a brothel and had broken the law numerous times in the past.  Doc Holliday was an amazing dentist but a horrible shot with an even worse temper.  And Wyatt’s girlfriend then wife Josephine while beautiful was a real pain in the you know what.  (See Ann Kirschner’s wonderful new book on Josephine: Lady at the O.K. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp for more on her.)

Exotic Josephine Marcus-later Josephine Earp

What Jeff did so well during his sold-out evening talk at Salisbury House was to deconstruct one of the most American of myths:  the gilded tale of the Western frontier and the men and women who lived there.  Iconic figures like the Earps and Doc Holiday were not wholesome, all-American boys intent on upholding frontier justice.  They were all out to make a name for themselves, to make their fortunes and their reputations by any means necessary.  To quote from Jeff’s book, “What has come to be known as ‘the Shootout at the O.K. Corral’ became a pivotal moment in American annals because misunderstandings, exaggerations, and outright lies about it provided impetus for future generations to form a skewed, one-dimensional view of frontier history.”

Jeff also made time  last Thursday to talk to Des Moines Public Schools Central High students studying A.P. American History.  The savvy author won their attention immediately by mentioning that hip actor/producer/cartoonist Seth MacFarlane had tweeted favorably about The Last Gunfight.  After luring his audience in with this pop culture tidbit, he taught them a real history lesson regarding the events at the O.K. Corral.  ”Cowboy” was actually a negative term in  Tombstone in 1881.  Many of the cowboys were Southerners who had come West looking for freedom from the federal government after the Civil War.  They did not want ANYONE telling them what to do or limiting their gun usage.  (Being a Southerner myself, I don’t think things have changed a whole lot regarding these views since 1881.)  The Earps were on the other side of the fence, supposedly trying to enforce gun control laws set down by the upstanding citizens of Tombstone. But they also had their own hidden agendas and motives that were not entirely pure.

Jeff summed it up by noting that the Tombstone episode still “defines political debate today.”   As he pointed out to the Central High School students, issues of gun control, government control, taxes, and the right to bear arms are still hot button issues NOW.

And to think, according to Jeff Guinn:  ”It all started in that empty lot in Tombstone.”

-HHL

the Last Gunfight by Jeff Guinn