A new documentary is on Netflix called Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War, and it’s gotten 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 alongside his brothers and doomed best friend, Doc Holliday. They might have died obscure lawmen and gamblers had it not been for their time in Tombstone that led to the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Wyatt Earp’s life has been fictionalized and glamorized on the big and small screen alike, a fitting tribute for a man who spent his final years in Hollywood as a consultant on the new movie industry and its Westerns. As beloved as movies about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday are, they’re not exactly accurate when it comes to history, so it can be hard to tell where the stories end and the truth begins with Wyatt Earp. Many of those stories involve his guns, specifically the pistol he carried in Tombstone, which has almost 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 become the stuff of legend, depicted in countless movies and TV shows, but what’s less commonly known is what kind of pistol he carried, exactly. Of course, it can be hard to pinpoint details like that from events that happened so long ago, but in the case of Wyatt Earp, we do 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 Marshal, told a very 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 Buntline, for whom the special revolver was named, gifted five of these revolvers to various lawmen in the West, including Wyatt Earp.
Lake claimed that Ned Buntline, for whom the special revolver was named, gifted five of these revolvers to various lawmen 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 these gifted guns was 12 inches, but Buntline only produced 9-, 10-, and 16-inch barrels at the time, so either there were a scant 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 O.K. Corral Gunfight Was Reportedly Up For Auction
Wyatt Earp’s Descendents 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 went up for sale in Arizona. His descendants claimed the .45 caliber revolver sold in that lot was the one Earp carried, possibly even in Tombstone, while other guns belonged to Wyatt’s brother, Virgil, and their grandfather. However, the guns and items came from the estate of Glenn Boyer, a highly controversial figure who had published three books about Wyatt Earp that were later discredited as being a blend of fact and fiction, or for having relied on fictional sources. (via AZ Central)
However, the gun was a .45-caliber Colt, the same cartridge as the Buntline, so in some ways, the auction supported Lake’s historical claims and in other ways threw it even more into question. Considering all the evidence, though, and the ubiquity of the Colt revolvers at the time, we can be almost certain that Wyatt Earp did carry a Colt .45 of some sort during his time in Tombstone, as shown in Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War, and used it during the shootout at the O.K. Corral, though whether or not it was a special edition Buntline is less certain.
Was Wyatt Earp’s Pistol Really Left In Alaska?
This Story Is Almost Certainly Fiction
There’s another legend attached to Wyatt Earp and one of his guns, though it happened decades after his time in Tombstone and the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and was about a different gun. According to the legend, Wyatt Earp left one of his guns, a Smith & Wesson No. 3 revolver, behind him in Juneau, Alaska. At 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 U.S. Marshals ordered him to surrender his weapons while he was switching steamships with the intention of heading to Nome to open a saloon during the Alaskan Gold Rush. Earp’s steamship left before the marshal’s offices reopened the next morning, however, 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 traded it to pay off his considerable drinking tab. Unfortunately, as with many stories about Wyatt Earp’s life, this one appears to have also been fabricated. The museum curator has stated he can find nothing in the records indicating the museum ever possessed that gun, and while there is documentation that Wyatt and Josephine Earp were in Nome, there is no record of them ever having been in Juneau. (via KTOO)
Despite its dubious origins, the pistol still hangs in the Red Dog Saloon to this day.
As with all the best legends, the story of Wyatt Earp is one that’s part historical fact and part myth. It’s not always clear which stories from his life are true and accurate, which ones are complete fiction, and which ones are rooted in truth but embellished to spin an even greater yarn about a larger-than-life figure. Even documentaries like Wyatt Earp and the Cowboy War can’t be completely true, simply because from the time Wyatt Earp carried that pistol into the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, his legend was already being woven. In the end, though, maybe it’s for the best: all legends need a little bit of myth-making to become immortal.