Did you know…?
Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp was a horse thief.
Although Wyatt Earp was one of the most famous lawmen of the Old West, he did have a checkered past. Long before the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Earp was not only sued for embezzlement, he was arrested as a horse thief.
On March 28, 1871, Wyatt Earp, John Shown, and Edward Kennedy were arrested for each stealing two horses from William Keys. Earp was arraigned on April 14 and bail was set at $500. On June 5, John Kennedy was inexplicably acquitted, even though John Shown’s wife testified that Earp and Kennedy forced her husband into committing the crime, threatening to kill him if he didn’t. Earp saw the writing on the wall and decided not to wait for the trial - he climbed out through the roof of the jailhouse and fled to Peoria, Illinois.
Wyatt’s troubles with the law didn't end there. While in Peoria, in February 1872, the brothel in which he was living was raided and Earp was arrested. He was brought in two more times that year for the same crime. The charge was always “keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame,” though there were also rumors he was a pimp.
Earp then moved to Wichita, Kansas. Although he joined the Marshal’s office, he was never far away from the brothel racket. He met Mattie Blaylock, a prostitue who became his common-law wife, and later opened a brothel with his brother, James, in Dodge City.
Did you also know…?
- People
- Queen Elizabeth II is the largest landowner on earth. She also owns whales.
- An eighteenth-century Russian peasant woman was the mother of all mothers.
- If it hadn’t been for his father, Charles Dickens might never have written his most famous works.
- The most successful—and feared—pirate in history was a woman.
- China’s most famous poet died for the love of a reflection.
- Elvis Presley won three Grammys—but none of them were for rock and roll.
- Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp was a horse thief.
- Alexander Graham Bell refused to own a telephone.
- Lizzie Borden was acquitted.
- Mata Hari lost her head—literally.
- Marilyn Monroe had several military awards to her credit.
- Abraham Lincoln’s son has a strange connection to presidential assassinations.
- Queen Elizabeth II has two birthdays.
- Peter the Great put a tax on beards.
- The first female casualty of World War II was a movie star.
- Andrew Jackson was called “King Andrew I” by his contemporaries.
- Ireland’s most famous (and bloodthirsty) executioner was a woman.
- Abraham Lincoln dreamt of his own death.
- There was a real Man in the Iron Mask.
- Gustav III of Sweden made coffee a death sentence.
- British monarchs have two birthdays.
- The first astronaut was a 16th-century Chinese man.
- Vishnu was the tallest dwarf in the Universe
- Greek god Hermes was the Thomas Edison of his time.