The legend of Wyatt Earp’s pistol and what really happened to it

A new documentary is airing on Netflix Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy WarAnd there were people wondering what happened to Wyatt Earp’s infamous pistol after he left Tombstone. Wyatt Earp is a legendary lawman, One of the most mythical figures of the Old West Along with his brothers and doomed best friend, Doc Holliday. They might have died dark loons and gamblers if it wasn’t for their time in Tombstone which led to the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral.

The life of Wyatt Earp was fictionalized and glamorized on the big and small screen, a fitting tribute to a man who spent his last years in Hollywood as a consultant for the new movie industry and its Westerns. As beloved as movies about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday are, they aren’t exactly accurate when it comes to history, either It can be hard to tell where the stories end and the truth begins with Wyatt Earp. Many of these stories involve his guns, specifically the pistol he carried in Tombstone, which has almost as many stories about him as Erp 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 become the stuff of legend, depicted in countless movies and television shows, But what is less known is what kind of pistol he carried, exactly. Of course, it can be hard to find details like that from events that happened so long ago, but in the case of Wyatt Earp, we know what kind of gun he carried—probably. And the accounts of his gun are true – mostly. Accounts of his gun comes, in particular, from his biographer Stuart N. Lake, whose book Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshaltold a highly fictionalized and sensationalized story of Earp’s life when it was released in 1931, two years after Earp’s death.

We do know that Earp carried what was most likely a Colt Single Action Army revolver. However, the gun was reportedly not very accurate. Instead, Colt created a limited edition Colt Buntline Special, a special edition of the Single Action Army revolver with a longer barrel. In his biography, Lake claimed that Ned Buntlein, for whom the special revolver is named, donated five of the revolvers to various lawmakers in the West, including Wyatt Earp.

There was a significant discrepancy that casts doubt on this claim, however. Lake wrote that the barrel length of the gifted guns was 12 inches, But Buntline only produced 9-, 10- and 16-inch barrels at the time, So either there were a few made with foot-long barrels, Lake got this fact wrong, or he made it up (via Ammunition to go). Either way, Colt ran with it and reissued the Colt Buntline special in the late 1950s.

Wyatt Earp’s pistol used during the Good Coral Gun is reportedly up for auction

The descendants of Wyatt Earp claimed it was real

None of this is where the story ends, however. It continued in 2014 When a number of Earp’s belongings and memorabilia are for sale in Arizona. His descendants claimed that the .45-caliber revolver sold at the site was the one Earp carried, possibly even in Tombstone, while other guns belonged to Wyatt’s brother, Virgil, and their grandfather. However, the gun and items came from the estate of Glenn Boyer, a highly controversial figure who published three books about Wyatt Earp that were later discredited as a blend of fact and fiction, or for having relied on fictional sources. (via That central)

however, The gun was a .45 caliber Colt, the same cartridge as the BuntlineSo in some ways, the auction supports Lake’s historical claims and in other ways calls it even more into question. However, considering all the evidence, and the ubiquity of Colt revolvers at the time, we can be almost certain that Wyatt Earp carried a Colt .45 of some sort during his time at Tombstone, as shown in Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy Warand used it during the shootout at the OK Corral, although whether it was a special edition buntline is less certain.

Was Wyatt Earp’s Pistol Really Left in Alaska?

The story is almost certainly fiction

There is another legend attached to Wyatt Earp and one of his guns, although it was decades after his time in Tombstone and the gun at the OK Corral and was about a different gun. According to legend, Wyatt Earp left one of his guns, a Smith & Wesson No. 3 revolver, behind in Juneau, Alaska. By the time it happened, it was the turn of the 20th century, and Earp had already made a name for himself as a fearsome gunfighter, so the US To open a pub during the Alaskan Gold Rush. Earp’s steamship left, however, before the marshal’s bureaus reopened the next morning, and the rest, as they say, was history.

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 in the 1910s or ’20s when an employee of the museum where it had previously resided Trades to pay off his substantial drinking tab. Unfortunately, as with many stories about Wyatt Earp’s life, This was also fabricated. The museum curator said he could find nothing in the records to indicate the museum ever possessed the gun, and while there is documentation that Wyatt and Josephine Earp were in Nome, there is no record of them ever being in Juneau. . (via KTOO)

As with all the best fairy tales, The story of Wyatt Earp is one that is part historical fact and part myth. It is not always clear which stories of his life are true and accurate, which are complete fiction, and which are rooted in truth but embellished to spin a larger yarn about a larger-than-life figure. Even documentary like Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War Couldn’t be entirely true, simply because by the time Wyatt Earp carried that pistol into the OK Corral in Tombstone, his legend was already woven. In the end, though, maybe it’s for the best: all legends need a bit of myth-making to become immortal.

Key background

• The production is a six-episode docuseries that focuses on the feud between Wyatt Earp and Ike Clanton brought to life with vivid reenactments, highlighting the gun that shaped an era.

• Ed Harris serves as the narrator for Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War.

• The docuseries tries to demythologize the Old West.