Virgil Earp Arrives in Arizona
Originally published in the October 2025 issue of the Tombstone Epitaph
By Ron Williams
Virgil Earp’s arrival in Arizona, and his first months in the territory before settling in Prescott, has not been a clear story. Most of it comes from recollections of his wife Allie over a half century after the events, relayed through author Frank Waters – whose true agenda has been questioned by Earp historians. Using primary sources, newspapers of the period, the known roads and trails of territorial Arizona, and Allie’s descriptions as guides, a clearer picture of Virgil’s first four to seven months in the Arizona Territory can be developed.
In the 1870s, traveling in the Arizona Territory was an arduous journey. The railroad was still years away, and maintained roads as we know them were non-existent. To appreciate Virgil Earp’s arrival in Arizona, it is important to understand the history of the route.
In the fall of 1858, Edward Fitzgerald Beale blazed a trail from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Los Angeles, California by order of the U.S. government. This route, known as the Beale Wagon Road, would one day become Route 66, and later Interstate 40. Traveling west from Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, this wagon road crossed into what would later be the Arizona Territory, heading through or near where the towns of Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, Ash Fork, Seligman, and Kingman would eventually lay. The route crossed the Colorado River into California, traverse the Mohave desert, and continued on to Los Angeles. Beale described his route as the shortest path, heading nearly due west. He also stated the path was mostly level, and well-watered (Edward Fitzgerald Beale: A Pioneer in the Path of Empire,1912, pages 230-232). This was the only road across northern Arizona.
The Arizona Territory was established by the Organic Act of 1862, carving it out from the New Mexico Territory. A territorial government was authorized in 1863, and the United States Army established Fort Whipple in the Arizona Territory. The next year the fort was relocated a few miles south, near what would soon be the village of Prescott. In 1864, Colonel J. Francisco Chaves was charged with establishing a route linking Fort Whipple to the Beal Road. The Chavez Trail, as it became known, branched off southwest from the Beale Wagon Road at Sunset Crossing (later known as Winslow). The trail traveled southwest, closely following modern-day Arizona State Route 87, before turning west to Stoneman Lake. From there the Trail headed south, more or less along modern-day Interstate 17, passing Montezuma’s Well, and reaching Fort Verde (later the town of Camp Verde). From Fort Verde, the Chavez Trail wound south, climbing up Copper Canyon just east of modern-day Interstate 17, before turning west and following Ash Creek (along modern-day Arizona State Route 169). From there the trail followed the Agua Fria River west to Lynx Creek and then on to Prescott (very loosely following the modern-day Arizona State Route 69). This route was the only way between Camp Verde and Prescott until the 1880s.
By 1875, Prescott was a thriving community of perhaps a thousand people. It was the seat of Yavapai county, and had been the territorial capital from 1864 through 1867. No later than April of 1875, Ben Baker had acquired the government mail contract between Prescott and Santa Fe. Baker turned the mail contract into a profitable stage and mail line, utilizing the Chavez Trail and Beale Wagon Road. Baker resided in Camp Verde, which held the only post office in the Verde Valley at the time. The western termination of the mail route, in Prescott, was managed from Jackson & Tompkin’s Saloon on Whiskey Row, just a few doors south of where the Palace Saloon now stands (the location is now the Arts Prescott Gallery, at 134 S. Montezuma Street). It was there that mail and parcels could be dropped off or picked up, where tickets for the stage to Camp Verde and Santa Fe could be purchased, and where passengers were picked up and dropped off. Mail between Prescott and Santa Fe took 7 days to cross the 507 miles, and the leg of the route between Prescott and Camp Verde took two days by buckboard. Passenger fares between Prescott and Camp Verde were $7.00 per person, which is over $200 in today’s money.
The Earps had left Kansas in the spring of 1877, heading for San Bernadino, California. The wagon train consisted of eleven people – patriarch Nicholas Earp, eldest son Newton Earp, younger son Virgil Earp, and Bill Edwards (who was to marry Adelia, Nicholas’ daughter), along with their various relations. The family arrived in the Arizona Territory in early July of 1877 following the Beale Wagon Road. At Sunset Crossing the Earp wagon train turned southwest along the Chaves Trail. Virgil’s wife Allie, in her interviews with Frank Waters, stated that at that time they entered “a little valley” and stayed with a “Mr. Baker”, who gave Virgil a job delivering mail to Prescott by wagon, a trip taking two days. Given the information known about Ben Baker, the Verde Valley, Baker’s stage and mail line, and the roads of northern Arizona, it is clear that this is who and what Allie was referring to. This evidence is further supported by a ledger entry by Ben Baker, for October 10, 1877, where he notates “$2.00 for Mdse (merchandise) by Earp”.
Ben Baker had been running his stage and mail line for just over 2 years when the Earps arrived in the Verde Valley. His company was running three buckboards a week between Prescott and Camp Verde - departing Prescott at 6am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and arriving back from Camp Verde at 6pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. While it was profitable for Baker, between Indian raids, rough roads, and the general lawlessness of the Arizona Territory, it was dangerous work: Baker had several employees who were robbed or murdered in the course of transporting mail.
Allie had stated that she and Virgil were nearly broke when they arrived in the Arizona Territory. Needing money and having prior experience as a teamster, it is no surprise the hardened Civil War veteran Virgil was hired by Ben Baker. Virgil was given the route from Camp Verde to Prescott – an approximately 40-mile buckboard journey that took two days.
The Earp wagon train split up at Camp Verde, with Virgil and Allie remaining behind and Nicholas with the rest of the family continuing on to Prescott. It is likely that the entire Earp party spent a few weeks resting and recovering in Camp Verde, as a newspaper article in the Arizona Weekly Miner, dated August 10,1877 states “N.P. Earp, who recently arrived [in Prescott] with his family from Kansas….proposes in a few days to continue his journey on to San Bernadino.”
For his new job Virgil would climb up on his buckboard on a Sunday, Tuesday, or Friday morning at 6am. The buckboard, loaded with passengers, mail, and parcels, would leave Camp Verde to arrive at Jackson & Tompkin’s Saloon the next day by 6pm. Virgil would stay overnight in Prescott, and the next morning at the saloon he would take on fresh mail, parcels, and passengers, and make the 2-day journey back to Camp Verde.
Exactly how long Virgil drove this route is unclear. Baker’s October 10, 1877 ledger entry strongly implies that Virgil was still in his employ at that time. What is known is that Virgil was living in Prescott by mid-October of that year: Allie mentions living in Prescott at the time of Virgil’s joining a sheriff’s posse and shootout, which occurred on October 16, 1877. The stage route’s schedule would have allowed Virgil to just as easily drive round trip out of Prescott as he had done from Camp Verde.
It is possible that Earp continued to work for Ben Baker until as late as February of 1878. However, by early March of that year newspapers were reporting that Virgil was working for Patterson & Caldwell, driving a stage and freight line between Prescott and Tip Top/Gillette, two mining towns in the Bradshaw mountains south of Prescott. What is known is Baker’s stage line came to an end in 1882, possibly a financial victim of the railroad being completed through northern Arizona that same year and paralleling the old Beale Wagon Road. After all, trains transport passengers and mail much faster than a stage line.
Virgil Earp is best known for being the Tombstone City Marshal, a deputy United States Marshal, and perhaps even as Prescott’s constable. His start in Arizona, however, was less glamorous and auspicious. Arriving in the Arizona Territory nearly broke, he spent his first several months there driving a buckboard and delivering mail, parcels, and passengers. It would take him over a year to build the reputation and community trust to earn a badge and begin the path that would lead him to be one of Arizona’s famous lawmen.
-Ron Williams is a 32-year law enforcement veteran, and the elected constable of Prescott. He has written for the Tombstone Epitaph national monthly newspaper and True West magazine, as well as co-hosting lectures on “Virgil: Toughest of the Earps” and “The Tombstone-Prescott Connection”. Ron is also co-host of the Whiskey Row History Show podcast, with author and historian Bradley G. Courtney.