Whiskey Row’s Virgil Earp
By Bradley G. Courtney
So great is the shadow cast by Tombstone’s 1881 shootout seventy-five feet from the OK Corral, it isn’t widely known that the law-enforcement career of Virgil Earp began in Prescott. Its launching point began in a prominent saloon on Whiskey Row.
In 1877, the Jackson & Tompkins’ Saloon (where Arts Prescott Gallery sits today) was one of the top four saloons in Prescott. On October 17, Colonel William McCall—a Pennsylvanian who’d been breveted General during the Civil War—was enjoying a game of billiards therein. That’s when two men—George Wilson (who was calling himself “Mr. Vaughn”) and Robert Tullos (aka John Tallos)—walked in and made a beeline for McCall. One jabbed a pistol in his back while the other whispered threats into the Colonel’s ear.
Why? Eight years previous, McCall had been spending time near the Texas/Oklahoma border. While there, he learned Wilson had murdered Robert Broddus, a deputy sheriff of Montague County, Texas. The murderer fled into Colorado before eventually journeying to Prescott. To his surprise, he spotted McCall there, knowing he was aware of his crime.
Somehow, McCall escaped and exited the saloon. He bolted straight into the office of C. F. Cate, the justice of peace. Cate issued an arrest warrant for “Mr. Vaughn” and “John Doe”. The warrant was given to village marshal Frank Murray who immediately strode over to Jackson & Tompkins’, followed by McCall.
Prior to their arrival, the two no-goods—clearly soused—stepped outside, and one took a potshot at a dog that was being walked along the Plaza. When Murray arrived, that’s the offense for which Wilson and Tullos believed they were being held accountable. Both pulled their pistols, quickly mounted up and galloped their horses southward down Montezuma Street while shooting to the left and right, like a scene from a Western movie.
Murray gathered an all-star posse, but it took some time, giving the desperadoes an advantage.
In the Palace Saloon on Gurley Street (unrelated to today’s Palace Saloon), three men were engaged in friendly conversation, and obviously oblivious to what had just transpired. Two were high-ranking lawmen. One was Yavapai County sheriff, Ed Bowers, who, along with Murray, would pursue on horseback. The other was Wiley Standefer, U.S. marshal and co-proprietor of the Gurley Street Palace Saloon. He and McCall jumped aboard a horse-drawn carriage.
The third was Virgil Earp, new to Prescott and so little-known the Miner called him “Mr. Earb”. Virgil had never been an official lawman, but was a Civil War and was presently toting his Winchester rifle (or was provided one). He was promptly deputized. However, he had no horse with him, and there was room for only two on the carriage. He would have to keep up on foot!
Wilson and Tullos were expected to be far down the trail by now. How long would Virgil last? Fortunately, the chase wouldn’t be a heroic, Western movie-like affair, but more like a scene from Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles. The outlaws, instead of distancing themselves from Prescott’s downtown, stopped at the corner of Carleton and Granite streets (where the Mile High Middle School is today) and dismounted with pistols drawn. Wilson even lit up a cigarette.
Standefer and McCall, leading the posse and moving swiftly, rode right by the fugitives. Lucky break? Yes, until one of them shouted, “Don’t run over us, you s— of a b—!” The two posse members halted and turned their guns on the outlaws while Murray and Bowers rode up and did the same. Earp quickly caught up, positioned himself in between and shouldered his Winchester. After hearing the demand to surrender, the criminals opened fire.
Bullets and buckshot came from three directions. Wilson fell immediately when a bullet penetrated his skull. He hung on for two days before passing. Tullos died instantly after being wounded eight times, almost all from Virgil’s Winchester rifle.
This episode proved Virgil was a man who could be counted on. He was soon appointed Prescott’s nightwatchman, and later elected constable. In early November 1879, younger brother Wyatt arrived in Prescott with Doc Holliday. Shortly after, Virgil and Wyatt left for Tombstone, but Doc stayed behind until September 1880. On October 26, 1881, in a 30-second gunfight on Tombstone’s Fremont Street, they, along with Morgan Earp, shot their way into eternal fame.