Newman Haynes Clanton:  American terrorist.  In eastern and southern Arizona, he turned cattle rustling into a thriving business.  Natural watered trails around towns and settlements served him well and buyers of fresh beef didn't ask questions. Members of the Cattlemen's Association asked questions. People who thought they got a raw deal asked questions.  But no one interfered with Clanton.  Surrounding him were gunslingers who killed at the least provocation and laughed about it.

 Seen nosing around Tombstone late in '79 was a feller who had been effective at keeping order in Dodge City and Wichita. Ordinarily, would-be community defenders didn't worry Clanton, but this one had nerve.

"Got myself a job," the feller said.

"Cow punchin'?"

"Marshalin'."

"Marshalin'!  In Tombstone?  Well, good luck to you Mr . . . "

"Earp.  Wyatt Earp."

He was a law clerk, buffalo hunter, railroad builder, boxer, high stakes gambler, saloon owner, entrepreneur, and lawman.  In his autobiography, Bat Masterson described a lawman who rode 50 miles to arrest a killer.

Yet, 30 movies about Wyatt Earp offered nothing more than another take on a tired old work of fiction, "Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal."  Because he felt he couldn't trust author Stuart Lake, Wyatt refused to have anything to do with it.

He should have worried more about "Helldorado," a book by Billy Breckinridge.  He counted among his friends some of Arizona's worst hell raisers.  When they weren't out stealing cattle, they were collecting taxes illegally, pocketing the money, and paying lawmen to look the other way.  The situation was so out of control that President James Garfield took steps to remove John Fremont as Governor.  Four hundred gunmen terrorized eastern and southern Arizona and little could be done about it until good men stood up to them.  When Wyatt stood up to them and killed their leader in a shotgun duel , it was all over except the wailing of Billy Breckinridge.  His gun slinging friends remembered they loved their families and high-tailed it for home.

 "For my handling of the situation at Tombstone, I have no regrets," said Wyatt.  "If the outlaws and their friends and allies imagined that they could intimidate or exterminate the Earps by process of assassination, and then hide behind alibis and the technicalities of the law, they simply missed their guess."



Cousin Robert Holliday founded the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery.  John Henry enrolled, graduated, but soon discovered he contracted tuberculosis, the disease that took his mother and adopted brother.

 Dallas, Texas, offered a warmer climate, and greedy gambling halls welcomed an educated, well-dressed young Southern gentleman.  A hot-tempered heavy drinker who carried two guns and a sneak knife was not welcomed, however, and after a shooting John Henry "Doc" Holliday left Dallas two jumps ahead of a marshal.

Three gunfights in Jackson, a scrape in Fort Richardson, and trouble in Pueblo, Leadville, and Central City, Kansas, sent our young blonde wanderer wandering almost aimlessly now.

Into the next town came lawman Wyatt Earp, the two met, a friendship developed, and in Dodge City, Kansas, one night, Doc pulled Wyatt out of a scrape with some cowboys raising ned in Luke Short's Long Branch Saloon.

Tombstone legend has Doc at Wyatt's side the night a mob went after gambler Johnny-Behind-the Deuce (Michael O'Rourke).

"Any of you bastards pulls a gun and your leader will lose what's left of his brains!" Doc yelled, and the cowboys backed off.

"Holliday had a mean disposition and an ungovernable temper and under the influence of liquor was a most dangerous man," lawman Bat Masterson would later write.

"He was good company to his friends," said Josie Earp, Wyatt's wife of nearly 50 years. "I liked to be around him, and saw a lot of him after Wyatt and I left Tombstone."

What did the Earps and Clantons do in Tombstone when they weren't spoiling for a fight? Why, they partied like you and I, Dude!  In this rare photo, Wyatt Earp is seated on the left with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other. Seated on the right is Dodge City gambler Luke Short. That's Doc Holliday standing behind Wyatt with his arm around Tom McLaury, one of his victims in the OK Corral fight. The tall fellow in the white suit is Ike Clanton. Leaning over is Morgan Earp and the cocky looking kid on the far right is Billy Clanton. Notice how many are wearing party hats.

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