“Wyatt Whoppers, Doc Doozies and
More in Prescott” Worksheet
By Bradley G. Courtney
Here are some of the false stories I have heard over the years regarding the Earps et al in Prescott:
Key to all of this, Wyatt Earp was in Prescott in 1879 for 1-2 weeks. Doc from Late October 1879 to March 1880 (Kate was with him). A second tenure for Doc was May 1880 to probably the mid-August of 1880 (Kate was not with him).
Here are some of the whoppers, which include not just Wyatt, but those who were associated with him in some way.
Myth from Wikipedia: Wyatt was involved in several gunfights in Prescott and even shot and killed two guys in Whiskey Row Alley. Truth: Wyatt did not kill anyone anywhere until Tombstone.
Myth from YouTube: Virgil Earp shot two guys in front of the Palace. Truth: The shooting took place on the corner of Granite and Carleton streets where Mile High Middle School is today.
Lie: Wyatt was sitting right over there (as I was sitting in the Palace that was built in 1901).
Myth: Wyatt summered in Prescott and wintered in Tombstone. A visitor to Prescott told me this is what he was told in a Whiskey Row saloon.
Lie: Doc Holliday gambled at this very table in the Palace Saloon and won $10,000 (today’s Palace was built in 1901. Doc was in Prescott 1879-80.) Truth: Doc surely did well on Whiskey Row, but there was not that much money to be won on the Row in 1879-80. The saloons he gambled is strictly a matter of speculation.
Lie: Doc and Kate spilled wine and whiskey on this very floor (as I was sitting in the Palace that was built in 1901).
Lie: Doc and Wyatt played billiards right here (as I was sitting in the Palace that was built in 1901).
Myth from Wikipedia: Doc stabbed and killed a guy in the Palace (BTW, the story about Doc stabbing anybody has been proven a myth by Doc historians long ago). See https://archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1/legends-lies-the-real-doc-holliday-versus-hollywoods-vision. Of course this myth came from a scene in the movie Tombstone.
Myth: Kate practiced prostitution upstairs in the Palace (as I was sitting in the Palace that was built in 1901). Truth: There was no Palace, or an upstairs when Kate was briefly in Prescott in 1879-80.
Myth: Kate bribed Governor Hunt into living in the Pioneer’s Home because she knew incriminating stuff about him. This is a complete myth. Truth: She wrote two letters to the governor pretty much begging him, as she was destitute, to get into the home—a copy of those letters can be made available. It is clear from the letters that he was not an “old friend” as the myth goes.
Myth: Kate was the first woman admitted in the Pioneer’s Home. She then was influential in getting other women into the home. This is a complete myth. Truth: Drew Desmond discovered that the home was opened to women 15 years before Kate arrived.
Lie: Wyatt and Doc slept at Hotel St. Michael (built long after 1879 when Wyatt and Doc were here).
Lie: Wyatt and Doc slept at the Hotel Vendome (built long after 1879 when Wyatt and Doc were here).
Lie: Wyatt and Doc slept at the Hassayampa Inn (built in 1927).
Lie heard on a Phoenix television news report: Kate dealt faro in the Palace. Most likely, Kate never dealt faro anywhere. A new claim has come out that she dealt cards in the Palace when she was a senior citizen while living in the Pioneers’ Home. Truth: Kate was almost deaf, and also somewhat invalid due to a scorpion bite to her leg that happened when she lived in southern Arizona, and was in her 80s. She was going by the name of Mary Cummings at the time, and VERY few in Prescott knew she was the infamous Big Nose Kate Fisher of the Tombstone dramas.
Lie: After Tombstone, Kate came back to Prescott, remarried, and lived here happily ever after (this is posted on the wall of a new saloon on the Row). Truth: Kate did not came back to Prescott until 1931.
Myth: Wyatt dealt faro on Whiskey Row. Truth: Wyatt was not here long enough to establish a faro game. He was basically just passing through.
Myth: Wyatt and Doc came through Prescott because they were chasing Cowboys. Truth: Neither were wearing a badge when in Prescott. And Doc was never really a lawman in the sense of holding an office.
Myth heard from a person who attended one of my lectures: When Doc was in Colorado in the mid- to late 1880s, he would often come back to Prescott to gamble because gambling on the Row was better. Truth: He was too sick to travel that far, and once he left Arizona he never came back—he was a wanted man there.
A photo of Doc hangs in the Palace with the caption that Doc played cards there in the late 1880s. Truth: Doc left Arizona in 1882 and never came back, and died in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in 1887.
A photo that is supposed to be Doc is posted in front of the Palace. Truth: It is actually of John Escapule.
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It is key to remember that when Wyatt, Doc, and Kate were in Prescott in 1879-80, they were not yet legends, contrary to popular local belief. They were obscure figures, even in Tombstone at first. Wyatt, especially, passed through Prescott unnoticed. His name never appeared in the local newspaper. No one knew who he was. It was the Tombstone dramas that made them all famous.
Because the Palace’s origin year has been incorrectly assigned as 1877, imaginations have gone wild with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday possibilities because they were here in the late 1870s (and there was no saloon in Prescott named the Palace in 1879-80). Then when the legends became fact in the minds of many, the legends have been printed over and over, and repeated over and over on a daily basis, and are being repeated at this very moment while I am typing this. In my mind, this is much to the detriment of the Palace because its magnificent true history is being ignored in favor of these false legends, and it’s a history that should be told.
There was a Palace Saloon at 112 Gurley Street in 1877, but it is not related to today’s Palace. Also, that Palace had already gone out of business by the time Doc and Wyatt came into Prescott in 1879.
These false legends did not exist until after the 1993 Tombstone movie with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. Earp and Doc mania became stronger than ever.
What do we know about Wyatt in our town? He was in Prescott to join brother Virgil on the way to Tombstone. He and common-law wife Mattie stayed at Virgil and Allie Earp’s residence, which was probably in Prescott-proper at the time. Also with them were James Earp and his wife. Although there is absolutely no documentation about it, we can assume they came into town for supplies or to dine, but we really have no idea where—we can only guess. My current research leads me to conclude Wyatt was here for about a week. I liken his time in Prescott as an “extended layover.” Nothing more.
Doc and Kate went into town and found their own boarding after arriving with the Earps in the fall of 1879. Eventually, Kate left for Globe, and Doc was here on his own, but there is more to that story.
A recent book claimed that Doc and Kate stayed in “Prescott’s only hotel.” There were several hotels and lodging houses in Prescott in 1879.
Doc was actually in Prescott for two separate tenures for a total of around 8 months. It is possible that while Doc was residing in Tombstone that Doc came back to Prescott to gamble a time or two. Whiskey Row was part of a gambling circuit.
We know a bit more about Doc in Prescott. Doc was well-behaved while in Prescott. His name did not show up in the local papers until the Tombstone drama, and neither did Wyatt’s.
If you hear a story about Wyatt in Prescott, it is made up, except for what I have noted above.
I think it is important to realize that “Wyatt-whoppers” are not exclusive to Prescott. So far, I have come across false stories coming from Flagstaff, Mayer, Jerome, Central City, Colorado, and even Las Vegas, Nevada.
The more I talk to people who have been on the Row for a long time, the clearer it becomes that the Earp and Doc stories surfaced after the movie Tombstone in the early 1990s. There was little mention of them before that, they tell me. One bartender who has been bartending on the Row since the 1970s told me he could not remember any Earp-Doc talk back then. Then Earp-mania climbed to another level after Tombstone. It hit Prescott hard after Sam Eliott as Virgil mentioned Prescott in the movie.
A renowned historian named Bert Fireman did not even know that Doc Holliday had lived in Prescott until a booklet about Doc was privately published by the Holliday/McKey family in the 1970s. And it was not common knowledge until the late 1990s.