Wyatt earp short biography

Early Life

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born in 1848 in Monmouth, Illinois. The third of five sons born to Nicholas and Virginia Ann Earp, he spent his early life in Illinois and Iowa.

As a young teenager, Wyatt repeatedly tried to run away and join his brothers James and Virgil and his half-brother Newton, who fought for the Union during the Civil War; each time he was caught and forced to return home.

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At 17, Wyatt left home and found work hauling freight and grading track for the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1869, he joined his family in Lamar, Missouri, becoming the local constable after his father resigned the position.

Did you know?

The mythic stature of Wyatt Earp as a virtuous lawman and the best gunfighter in the West grew in the decades after his death. He became the subject of numerous TV shows and movies, and has been portrayed by such leading actors as Henry Fonda, Burt Lancaster, James Garner, Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner.

In early 1870, Earp married Urilla Sutherl