A brand new documentary is on Netflix referred to as <em>Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War</em>, and it is gotten folks questioning what occurred to Wyatt Earp’s notorious pistol after he left Tombstone. Wyatt Earp is a legendary lawman, one of the vital legendary figures of the Old West alongside his brothers and doomed finest buddy, Doc Holliday. They may need died obscure lawmen and gamblers had it not been for his or her time in Tombstone that led to the notorious gunfight on the O.Okay. Corral.

Wyatt Earp’s life has been fictionalized and glamorized on the massive and small display alike, a becoming tribute for a person who spent his remaining years in Hollywood as a advisor on the brand new film business and its Westerns. As beloved as motion pictures about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday are, they are not precisely correct on the subject of historical past, so it may be exhausting to inform the place the tales finish and the reality begins with Wyatt Earp. Many of these tales contain his weapons, particularly the pistol he carried in Tombstone, which has virtually as many tales about it as Earp himself.

What Kind Of Pistol Wyatt Earp Used In Tombstone

It Was A Colt .45 – That Much We Know (Probably)

Wyatt Earp’s pistol has change into the stuff of legend, depicted in numerous motion pictures and TV reveals, however what’s much less generally identified is what sort of pistol he carried, precisely. Of course, it may be exhausting to pinpoint particulars like that from occasions that occurred so way back, however within the case of Wyatt Earp, we do know what sort of gun he carried – most likely. And the accounts of his gun are true – largely. Accounts of his gun comes, particularly, from his biographer Stuart N. Lake, whose e book Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, advised a really fictionalized and sensationalized story of Earp’s life when it was launched in 1931, two years after Earp’s demise.

We do know that Earp carried what was most certainly a Colt Single Action Army revolver. However, the gun was reportedly not very correct. Instead, Colt created a restricted version Colt Buntline Special, a particular version of the Single Action Army revolver with an extended barrel. In his biography, Lake claimed that Ned Buntline, for whom the particular revolver was named, gifted 5 of those revolvers to varied lawmen within the West, together with Wyatt Earp.

There was a major discrepancy that casts doubt on this declare, nevertheless. Lake wrote that the barrel size of those gifted weapons was 12 inches, however Buntline solely produced 9-, 10-, and 16-inch barrels on the time, so both there have been a scant few made with foot-long barrels, Lake obtained this truth incorrect, or he made it up (through Ammunition to Go). Either manner, Colt ran with it and reissued the Colt Buntline particular within the late Fifties.

Wyatt Earp’s Pistol Used During The O.Okay. Corral Gunfight Was Reportedly Up For Auction

Wyatt Earp’s Descendents Claimed It Was Real

None of that is the place the story ends, nevertheless. It continued in 2014 when quite a few Earp’s belongings and memorabilia went up on the market in Arizona. His descendants claimed the .45 caliber revolver offered in that lot was the one Earp carried, presumably even in Tombstone, whereas different weapons belonged to Wyatt’s brother, Virgil, and their grandfather. However, the weapons and gadgets got here from the property of Glenn Boyer, a extremely controversial determine who had printed three books about Wyatt Earp that had been later discredited as being a mix of truth and fiction, or for having relied on fictional sources. (through AZ Central)

However, the gun was a .45-caliber Colt, the identical cartridge because the Buntline, so in some methods, the public sale supported Lake’s historic claims and in different methods threw it much more into query. Considering all of the proof, although, and the ubiquity of the Colt revolvers on the time, we may be virtually sure that Wyatt Earp did carry a Colt .45 of some kind throughout his time in Tombstone, as proven in Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War, and used it through the shootout on the O.Okay. Corral, although whether or not or not it was a particular version Buntline is much less sure.

Was Wyatt Earp’s Pistol Really Left In Alaska?

This Story Is Almost Certainly Fiction

There’s one other legend hooked up to Wyatt Earp and one among his weapons, although it occurred many years after his time in Tombstone and the gunfight on the O.Okay. Corral and was a couple of totally different gun. According to the legend, Wyatt Earp left one among his weapons, a Smith & Wesson No. 3 revolver, behind him in Juneau, Alaska. At the time it occurred, it was the flip of the twentieth century, and Earp had already made a reputation for himself as a fearsome gunfighter, so U.S. Marshals ordered him to give up his weapons whereas he was switching steamships with the intention of heading to Nome to open a saloon through the Alaskan Gold Rush. Earp’s steamship left earlier than the marshal’s workplaces reopened the subsequent morning, nevertheless, and the remainder, as they are saying, was historical past.

The gun that hangs on the wall of the Red Dog Saloon in Juneau is supposedly the Smith & Wesson Wyatt Earp left behind, and the bar acquired it within the 1910s or ’20s when an worker of the museum the place it had beforehand resided traded it to repay his appreciable ingesting tab. Unfortunately, as with many tales about Wyatt Earp’s life, this one seems to have additionally been fabricated. The museum curator has said he can discover nothing within the information indicating the museum ever possessed that gun, and whereas there may be documentation that Wyatt and Josephine Earp had been in Nome, there is no such thing as a document of them ever having been in Juneau. (through KTOO)

As with all the perfect legends, the story of Wyatt Earp is one which’s half historic truth and half delusion. It’s not at all times clear which tales from his life are true and correct, which of them are full fiction, and which of them are rooted in fact however embellished to spin an excellent larger yarn a couple of larger-than-life determine. Even documentaries like Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War cannot be utterly true, just because from the time Wyatt Earp carried that pistol into the O.Okay. Corral in Tombstone, his legend was already being woven. In the tip, although, perhaps it is for the perfect: all legends want just a little little bit of myth-making to change into immortal.