Originally published in Johns' Western Gallery auction catalogue
10a: Wyatt Earp, Tombstone & the West, Part I (San Francisco, 2004)

And yet, John D. Gilchriese started his collection without money or contacts, plus an additional burden—he was just a kid. John’s family moved to Los Angeles in the midst of the Roaring Twenties and settling in the community of Mount Washington. His father found work with the Santa Fe Railroad. A naturally friendly man he often invited colleagues home for family meals and conversation. These were old-time railroad men; men who delighted a small boy listening wide-eyed as they swapped stories of the railroad frontier, especially those early days in Arizona when the Territory swarmed with dreamers drawn to the southwestern deserts in search of silver and gold.

John’s father encouraged his son’s interests, including a preoccupation with birds that became a life-long obsession, together with an appreciation of other natural sciences, the study of ancient and modern languages, as well as this early fascination with the American West. In time that fascination extended far beyond the limits of Wild West violence and Wyatt Earp’s life. Separate areas of study included the early history of Los Angeles, the Gold Rush, the evolution of the telegraph, and other subjects detailing the complex story of the nation’s westward expansion.

The contribution of his father included visits to the annual Arizona Day Picnic, often held below Mount Washington at Sycamore Grove Park. There, young Gilchriese listened and began asking questions not only of the railroaders, but also old-time prospectors, teamsters, cattlemen, frontier merchants and retired professional men. Curiosity overcame youthful reluctance to approach these strangers since the atmosphere openly encouraged contact and conversation. The boy found out early that most people are willing to talk of their experiences if someone shows genuine interest. Saving this newly-acquired knowledge first only in memory, the boy soon realized the need for a more reliable system and began making detailed notes of everything he learned—even then an uncommon activity for someone his age.

When his son fell victim to a case of measles, John’s father brought home a pile of books, hoping to divert the boy’s attention from the inconvenience of the disease as well as the boredom of recovery. The elder Gilchriese included among his selections a newer title by an author named Stuart N. Lake—Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal.

That title was not singled out for any specific reason beyond its obvious Wild West subject matter. Although the name Wyatt Earp meant little to Mr. Gilchriese, he had actually seen the man at the Arizona Day Picnic in June 1927. While there, he noticed a number of attendees paying particular attention to one well-dressed older gentleman. Asking why all the fuss, a companion explained that the fellow was Wyatt Earp, a prominent character from the early days in Arizona.

Although he did not speak to the man, or learn anything about his Arizona years, John’s father did remember the name. Thus, it was a chance observation at an outdoor gathering in Los Angeles that prompted the purchase of Frontier Marshal for his son’s amusement. Of course, it did more than simply preoccupy a young boy’s convalescence. Reading that book sparked a life-long interest and provided the needed catalyst that would lead to the building of a great collection.

As had happened with other boys, Lake’s narrative fired John’s imagination. Surely, this fellow Wyatt Earp was one of the more salient characters to have emerged from America’s vanished frontier. Or so it seemed. The story related in Frontier Marshal was so exciting and so dramatic that Gilchriese wanted to know more. As a boy he did not question the accuracy of Lake’s account, he just wanted additional details about the Earp brothers, their friend Doc Holliday, and the town called Tombstone. His first response was to find out what else was available at the local library. There he was surprised to discover very little beyond Walter Noble Burns’s Tombstone, An Iliad of the Southwest, a volume that pre-dated Lake. The rest seemed little more than snippets in other books such as Frederick Bechdolt’s When the West Was Young, or William MacLeod Raine’s Famous Sheriffs & Western Outlaws.

To a boy infatuated with Wyatt Earp this paucity of titles seemed outrageous. His confusion deepened after discovering a copy of Helldorado by William M. Breakenridge. Here was an account written by someone who had actually been in Tombstone, but instead of solving John’s dilemma, it only clouded the issue. In short, Breakenridge did not hold the Earps in high esteem; a position irreconcilable to anyone as captivated by the subject as John Gilchriese. Clearly, there was more to this story than the simple comings and goings of a hero. Assuming his vision of Wyatt Earp could stand the test, John began a journey into historical detection that over time shattered all his youthful preconceptions, but also opened new worlds of research and a reverence for facts that broadened his view not only of this one folk-drama, but of the whole Western experience.

Reading Lake’s book had pointed out the possibilities, but so did John’s home on Mount Washington. When neighbors learned of his fledging fascination with Wyatt Earp they stunned the boy with news that his newfound hero had been a frequent guest on the mountain, riding the cable car up from Marmion Way to the Mount Washington Hotel. Then owned by Robert Marsh & Co., it was at that time a fashionable location amongst the budding Hollywood crowd. From the hotel in those days one could clearly see Catalina Island, some fifty miles away.

Earp was more interested in card games than staring out over the ocean. He socialized with many acquaintances on the mountain, some of whom now related their own impressions of the man. Gilchriese was delighted to learn that Wyatt Earp had been especially friendly with the previous owner of his father’s house. Neighbors recalled that Earp and the man often sat on the porch puffing cigars as they talked into the evening. Occasionally, Wyatt even slept over on the property. Of course, John was thrilled with that news and rushed home to tell his parents. Bemused, Mr. Gilchriese quietly explained to his son that he could not transform the property into a tourist shrine.

John discovered another advantage to living on Mount Washington. From there he could negotiate trails down the mountain to the Southwest Museum, a place that became a crossroads in his journey through the mysteries of history. Groundbreaking ceremonies on the present structure had taken place only twenty years before, helped from money raised by prominent attorney Henry W. O’Melveny—a family, Gilchriese would learn, with its own ties to early Arizona; one brother working as a railroad agent at Benson, while the father briefly opened a law office in Tombstone’s Gird Block with his old partner from Los Angeles, O. O. Trantum.

The Southwest Museum was the brainchild of Charles Fletcher Lummis, the writer and editor who had roamed much of the southwest during the final years of the Apache wars. That family left its own influence on John Gilchriese, he becoming good friends with the son, Keith Lummis. But it was at the Southwest Museum that doors began to open. It all started over a disagreement concerning a bird feather.

Even then the museum’s collections concentrated on the early life and customs of the American Indian. Studying the exhibits, young Gilchriese remarked that the label describing one basket misidentified a feather used as decoration. John’s long fascination with the habits of migratory birds had sparked an independent study eventually leading to more than just amateur status. All his early work now paid a rich dividend to the curious twelve-year-old.

Intrigued by this boy’s self-assuredness concerning the disputed feather, museum officials decided to reexamine the issue. When results confirmed the boy’s identification, all those involved, especially the museum’s director, Dr. Frederick Webb Hodge, one of the nation’s leading ethnologists, took a special interest in the young Mr. Gilchriese. They not only offered encouragement, but also allowed him to examine many of the museum’s heretofore-unseen treasures.

Learning of his interest in early Arizona, Dr. Hodge decided to give the boy unprecedented access to the collection of Joseph Amasa Munk, an Ohio-trained physician who had traveled to Arizona in 1884 to start a ranch near Willcox in Cochise County. His younger brother, Edward R., who for some reason spelled the family name M-o-n-k, also came over from Los Angeles and served several years as a county judge in Tombstone. Dr. Munk succumbed to the spell of southern Arizona’s desert country and began collecting everything he could find; in time his holdings numbered thousands of items: books, pamphlets, photographs, manuscripts, and documents of all kinds. When Dr. Hodge allowed Gilchriese access to this voluminous pile of data the collection had not yet been fully organized.

Quite possibly it can be said that John Gilchriese is the only person, aside from Dr. Munk himself, who has read the entire collection. It took years, of course, but toward the end of the exercise a single miscellaneous newspaper clipping would provide the name of the only man then living capable of breaking through that frustrating barrier of myth and legend surrounding the real Wyatt Earp.

Meanwhile, Gilchriese kept studying and collecting books (Mark Twain and Jack London first editions being particular favorites) while trying to find out more about this illusive frontier icon. Certainly one should have expected more than a single laudatory biography and a series of peripheral references. In time it became apparent that if anyone were to ever fully understand this man, they would need to assemble their own archive.

Growing older, John had already witnessed the exaggerated claims of many well-known historians. How easy it was, in contrast to his own travails, to examine sources on all the established figures of American history. Libraries and archives across the nation bulged with accumulated treasures. Researchers combed through these piles of paper without ever considering who had collected it all in the first place. In the end they wrote their books, indulging in self-congratulations on the originality of their efforts, but without ever uncovering anything original themselves. Rehash scholarship became a standard that unfortunately still persists.

But it was the locating of hitherto unknown documents that interested John Gilchriese during the summer of 1940, when the staff of the Southwest Museum gave him the name of a man who had spent his boyhood in Tombstone, and had even owned the town’s newspaper at the turn of the century.

That man was William H. Hattich. Born in Kansas in late 1871, he went to Tombstone with his family by way of Colorado and California when just a boy. And now, nearly sixty years later, he received a telephone call from an earnest seventeen-year-old fascinated with the same place that had consumed his own youth and early manhood. Intrigued by the teenager’s obvious commitment to the history of the old mining camp, Hattich invited Gilchriese to his home for the first of many sessions over the next twenty-four years. That visit marked the beginnings of a friendship that only ended in November 1964, after Mr. Hattich failed to rise from his afternoon nap the day after voting in the presidential election.

For the young researcher, Billy Hattich opened not only his own records and memory but put John in contact with dozens of other individuals with direct ties to life in Tombstone, and personal knowledge of the Earp brothers. Hattich also described in detail his own meetings with Wyatt in Los Angeles, where the two often enjoyed lunch exchanging views and impressions of those earlier days in Arizona. Billy even gave Gilchriese his own take on Doc Holliday.

Hattich’s father owned a tailor shop on Allen Street near the corner of Sixth. Many of Tombstone’s legendary figures made use of Bartholomew’s talents; including Old Man Clanton, Johnny Behan, the Earp brothers, and of course, Holliday. Hattich still had his father’s pattern books, listing measurements for these men who one day would be so famous. Doc took a special interest in the boy, often using Billy to run personal errands—mostly carrying notes to various people around town—a service for which he paid young Hattich fifty cents to a dollar, depending on whether he expected a reply.

The young boy found Holliday to be a friendly man, soft-spoken and generous. He also explained how Doc was something of a favorite among Tombstone youngsters, as he always carried candy in his coat pocket. Perhaps reflecting his early dental training, the good doctor was simply creating future business. Regardless, Hattich always thought well of Holliday, a feeling not necessarily shared by his parents.

Hattich also gave John his impressions of the Earp clan. By 1881 Billy was selling copies of the Tombstone Epitaph on business corners downtown. After the big fight on Fremont Street in late October, Wyatt and Doc were hauled before Justice of the Peace Wells Spicer to answer for their participation in that deadly affair—remembered by legend as the Gunfight at the O. K. Corral. Hattich’s father, fully aware that the hearing was taking place at the county courthouse next to the Epitaph‘s offices, warned Billy to avoid those men, as they seemed to attract violence and did not want his son caught in any crossfire. The boy ignored his father’s warnings and while collecting his newspapers watched the daily comings and goings of the defendants.

Gilchriese loved these stories—including an eyewitness account of Frank Leslie killing Billy Claiborne in late 1882—as well as the joy of examining hundreds of original documents and photographs, many of which Hattich graciously added to John’s growing collection.

Another important contact made around this time was Judge Jesse W. Curtis of San Bernardino. Born there in 1865, the judge was the son of William Curtis, a lawyer who had traveled across the plains the year before with a party of Iowa pioneers that included the Earp family. William became good enough friends with family patriarch Nicholas Porter Earp that he, and later his son Jesse, handled much of the Earp family’s legal business in California for decades thereafter. Both men became familiar with the Earps as few but personal attorneys ever could.

These insights intrigued Gilchriese, who first contacted the judge by telephone while still just a high school student hooked on Western history. All their original conversations were by phone, San Bernardino being too far for regular trips by a teenager. Judge Curtis was clearly sympathetic and impressed by the boy’s persistence. He encouraged John’s research, although never sharing his enthusiasm for the subject. Curtis knew too much about them to ever see the Earps as heroes.

John’s friendship with Judge Curtis blossomed after his Signal Corps service during World War II. Then, as a young man with a wife and child, he was in a better position to pursue in person his passion for research. Over the years these trips to San Bernardino opened up fresh sources of information and other possibilities.

Curtis introduced John to many people who had known the famous brothers and their family, deepening his understanding of the clan. The two even traveled out to the Mohave Desert, where the judge explained the route and identified campsites his father had shown him from the overland trip in 1864. Some locations had changed little since those days.

But one particular meeting over lunch shook John’s confidence. After showing the judge a number of newly-acquired documents on the Earp family’s activities in San Bernardino County (where at one time Nicholas even served as president of the local pioneers’ society), Curtis pondered a moment before asking why on earth would anyone with so much talent as a researcher and collector, and obviously intelligent, want to chase after these people? Why not study figures of real historical significance, not a family mired in myth and legend, men who would never have been remembered were it not for a thirty-second gunfight on the streets of Tombstone—itself contributing to that obsession with violence permeating American popular culture?

Driving home in his old Plymouth coupe, Gilchriese was clearly disturbed by the judge’s remarks. True, he no longer thought of Wyatt Earp as he once had, but was he really wasting his time trying to figure out a story that even then was sweeping the nation through a special edition of Lake’s book, loads of pulp magazine articles, and a highly popular television series?

That evening he talked over these concerns with his wife. She encouraged him to follow his own instincts. It was then that John realized an often-unrecognized truth about historical detective work. The importance of the subject does not necessarily determine the importance of the research. The California Gold Rush, for example, is certainly more significant than anything Wyatt Earp ever accomplished, but the act of researching the former is not in itself more significant than investigating the latter; a task made even more difficult by the sheer absence of source material.

What Gilchriese came to understand was the importance of personal interest as a driving force. Explaining all to Judge Curtis the wise old lawyer understood at once and wished him luck. That renewed encouragement did much to assure the building of a great collection, even after the judge introduced him to Nicholas Earp’s former accountant; another person who confessed that the Earp family would not be his first choice as a subject for historical investigation.

Ultimately, John’s research led him to Stuart N. Lake. Not only had Lake’s book sparked all the work that followed, but the author had also actually known Earp—albeit a brief acquaintance—and John could never ignore those opportunities. Gilchriese took the train from Los Angeles to interview Lake many times at his home in San Diego. He found the author pleasant company. Enjoying these visits, John scribbled notes and eventually brought along various items he had uncovered, some of which openly contradicted the picture painted in Frontier Marshal. Lake always politely pretended to be unconvinced by such evidence.

In time John realized there was nothing more to be gained from further meetings. He carefully explained all to Mr. Lake while thanking him for his hospitality. To prove his sincerity he collected copies of Lake’s pre-Frontier Marshal articles on Wyatt Earp published in the Saturday Evening Post and had them bound for the author as a parting gift. John continued to think of Lake as an interesting character and talented writer, if not a particularly reliable chronicler of Wyatt Earp’s life.

And yet, Gilchriese fully understood the importance of Lake’s contribution to the whole process of creating Wyatt Earp’s public persona. One should never lose sight of the fact that with individuals who first enter the popular consciousness as folk heroes, it is likely they would have remained forever trapped in the shadows were it not for that shift of emphasis. Without the myth there is often no story. Interest evolves from an effort to reconcile the truth against an entrenched legend. Without Stuart Lake’s Frontier Marshal or Walter Noble Burns’s Tombstone serving as an entrée, Wyatt Earp could never have become so famous. The contrast between fact and fiction remains the driving force of the story’s popularity. It is helpful to remember that Wyatt Earp is not a true historical character in the traditional sense. He is instead a contrivance, an actual person to be sure, but one redefined by the whims of popular culture, a life frozen in time as a symbol of our need to be entertained, be it the printed word, motion picture celluloid, or other more modern electronic toys.

Another important contact, although representing the opposite side of the question from Stuart Lake, was the writer Frank Waters. In his book The Colorado, published in 1946, Waters not only ridiculed the legend, but for the first time in print pointed out that Wyatt Earp had a wife in Tombstone, noting for his more skeptical readers: “Still in the county court is a record of a suit against Wyatt and his wife Mattie for recovery of money borrowed against their house.”

What John found most intriguing was that Waters had gathered much of his information years before interviewing the frail and elderly widow of Wyatt’s older brother, Virgil. Gilchriese met the writer in 1955 when Waters gave a lecture on Indians at Occidental College. Dr. Frederick Webb Hodge, John’s early mentor at the Southwest Museum, was on hand to introduce the speaker. Hodge considered Frank’s book The Man Who Killed the Deer the finest fictional representation of the American Indian ever written. After the festivities Dr. Hodge introduced Waters to Gilchriese, an occasion that launched a friendship that endured until Frank’s death in 1995.

During the late spring and summer of 1959 the two traveled all over Arizona, researching by day and sipping Scotch whisky in the evenings; for as Frank noted in the book that had brought them together, “Research on Western Americana is not an armchair job.” Among other discoveries they succeeded in finding out what had happened to Mattie Earp, the circumstances of her suicide in 1888 after being deserted by Wyatt, and the location of her grave outside Pinal, Arizona—not Willcox as Waters had previously surmised.

After the 1960 publication of his own controversial interlude, The Earp Brothers of Tombstone, Frank Waters gave John all the original notes of his interviews with Virgil’s widow, adding another dimension to the ever-expanding Gilchriese Collection; a treasure-trove that Frank freely acknowledged would be, “when finally released, a definitive history of the entire Earp family and a major piece of Western Americana.”

Contacts with the extended Earp family offered mixed results. Many talked at length about their famous relative, but it did not take long to recognize the source of their information as Stuart Lake’s Frontier Marshal. Others offered more useful insights, helpful clues to the inner workings of the family dynamic. One particularly reliable source proved to be Alice Earp Wells, the daughter of Wyatt’s older half-brother Newton Jasper Earp. Gilchriese visited her home in Vallejo, California, many times, spending hours listening to her reminisce. Along with offering much of her father’s family correspondence and other papers, Mrs. Wells recounted in detail an endless stream of stories, one even allowing a different take on her famous uncle as well as the enigmatic Doc Holliday.

Newton Earp lived for many years at Garden City, Kansas, some fifty miles west of Dodge City along the Arkansas River. The year was 1884 and Alice just a girl of nine. One afternoon two riders approached her father’s house. Sitting on the porch steps Alice saw that one of them was her uncle. As the riders dismounted she stood up and offered a formal greeting. Wyatt gave her little more than a mumbled reply before disappearing into the house with Newton.

Holliday, whom Alice did not recognize, smiled and asked if he could sit with her. She agreed, and the young girl and frontier gambler passed the time discussing all sorts of subjects that appealed to a child. After a while, Doc excused himself, returning from downtown with a brightly colored rag-doll that he formally presented to Alice Earp with his compliments. Later, watching as the two men rode away, Newton explained to his daughter that the man who had been so kind to her was the notorious Doc Holliday.

The use of the word notorious meant little to Alice. Judging everything from a child’s perspective, she thought of Dr. Holliday as a kindly gentleman, while her uncle Wyatt seemed cold and impersonal. She kept Holliday’s gift, and to her dying day never said anything against him. John filed her observations with dozens of other notes and continued his research.

At the Southwest Museum, some years after the war, poring over miscellaneous items added to the Munk Collection because of their Arizona connections, Gilchriese discovered a 1931 clipping from The New York Times that would change forever his understanding of Wyatt Earp. It was a letter to the editor from a man named John H. Flood, Jr., responding to a false story they had published concerning supposed animosity between Earp and William Tilghman. What caught John’s eye, however, were certain specific remarks: “You know, for the past twenty-five years I have functioned as Wyatt Earp’s secretary, and since his death on Jan. 13, 1929, I have served his widow, Mrs. Josephine S. Earp, in a similar capacity.” Gilchriese got even more excited reading: “I have the stenographic notes of the story of Wyatt Earp, just as Mr. Earp dictated them to me a few years ago. . . . Mr. Earp repeated to me many incidents of a confidential nature which never shall appear for publication.”

Private secretary? Stenographic notes? Incidents of a confidential nature? It seemed unbelievable. Who was this John H. Flood, Jr., and what had become of him? Gilchriese checked the 1931 Los Angeles City Directory at the main downtown library and saw the entry: “Flood John H jr r372 W 40th pl”. There had been no listing for the man in 1930, nor did one appear in 1932, or again for sure until 1940, then listing him as an “oil promoter” residing at 2933 4th Avenue. That address held through 1942, the last year a city directory was published for Los Angeles. A quick glance at the current telephone book failed to provide a number.

John drove to the County Recorder’s Office to see if Mr. Flood was a registered voter. And there he was, still listed at the address on 4th Avenue. Gathering up some of his most impressive discoveries, Gilchriese descended on Flood’s residence feeling as if he were playing the role of Henry M. Stanley searching for Dr. Livingston. Responding to his knock, the door opened to reveal a seventy-three-year-old gentleman, white haired, standing about five-seven, dressed in brown trousers and white shirt.

“Are you John H. Flood, Jr.?” Gilchriese asked cautiously. When the man answered that yes he was, John quickly outlined his reasons for the intrusion; that he was deeply interested in the life of Wyatt Earp and had seen Flood’s letter to The New York Times. Gilchriese further explained that he had brought along several documents he hoped to reveal and would very much appreciate Mr. Flood’s comments. The old man hesitated only a moment before inviting Gilchriese into his small home.

Thus began an important friendship lasting more than seven years; years filled with revelations and a treasure-trove of original documents, memorabilia, and ephemeral material. But it was a slow process. John Flood had never capitalized on his friendship with Wyatt Earp. Even now he kept most of what he knew to himself until he felt more comfortable with Gilchriese. But Flood also realized that all would be lost without someone with whom he could share his knowledge and experiences. There had to be more than legend left behind.

And John Flood knew it all, having a better grasp of Wyatt Earp’s complexities—blemishes and all—than anyone then living. It took years of patient probing mixed with relaxed conversation for Gilchriese to unlock all the secrets. No one could possibly get the truth out of John Flood from a single letter or chance meeting. This was a hugely complex story, and it took years to unravel all the convoluted twists surrounding Wyatt Earp’s secretive life.

John Flood first met Wyatt Earp in 1906 at The Hampden Arms, a four-story brick rooming house owned by Mrs. Nellie C. Blair at 516 W. 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles. Born in Pennsylvania and educated in the East, Flood had come to California by way of St. Louis, where he had met Mrs. Blair when she owned the Hotel Berlin. He now served as her clerk and bookkeeper in exchange for room and board. Although new to Los Angeles herself, Mrs. Blair had already met Wyatt Earp and his wife, Josephine. She also knew of Earp’s interest in mining claims on the Mohave Desert, and hoped to invest in similar properties herself. A skeptical John Flood questioned the reliability of the nimble-fingered individual he now saw dealing poker in Mrs. Blair’s private parlor; nor was he particularly impressed by Josephine’s appearance. What sort of resources did this man have, and was a professional gambler really the best sort of person to entrust with money? Certain that no one could overhear, Flood bluntly asked his employer, “Have you checked his bank credentials?”

Mrs. Blair dismissed Flood’s concerns and instead introduced the twenty-eight-year-old to Wyatt Earp, with the understanding that he accompany the older man out onto the desert as her agent (she ended up owning a half-interest in seventeen claims in San Bernardino County, plus two-thousand shares of a mine in Goldfield, Nevada). For his help, Earp and his wife were offered accommodations at The Hampden Arms whenever they were in town. Wyatt agreed and within days told the young bookkeeper to come along while he picked out various pieces of equipment needed for their trip.

Their first stop was the Wm. H. Hoegee Company, a sporting goods emporium at 138-142 S. Main Street. Earp wanted a shotgun and suggested Flood look over the selection of weapons and find something for himself. Wyatt and the clerk then haggled over a long-barreled, 12-gauge, lever action Winchester Model 1887, designed by John Browning to use shells loaded with black powder. After agreeing on price, Earp turned to Flood, who was eying a small nickel-plated pistol, and told him it wouldn’t do. Pointing to the Winchester, he recommended something with more power—something one could rely on in a tight spot. To that the clerk chuckled and said, “You ought to know, Mr. Earp.”

Flood thought it a strange remark. After all, he knew nothing of Wyatt Earp’s Arizona reputation, seeing him simply as another gambling man. Still, the clerk’s words peaked his curiosity. Later, after learning about Earp’s life on the frontier—especially his time in Tombstone—Flood admitted that the joke was on him. But now, he dismissed the idea of a shotgun and bought the small pistol instead. Perhaps as a surrender of sorts, he also chose a larger-caliber revolver, trying to leave the impression of knowing something about firearms, when in fact he had little or no experience.

Flood kept both pistols for years. After Wyatt’s death he also kept the shotgun from Hoegee’s. As he later explained to Gilchriese, Mr. Earp grew so fond of that old Winchester that for John Flood it always seemed special.

Over the next twenty-three years Flood and Earp shared confidences as their friendship deepened. Having already changed his once low opinion of the Earps, Flood not only gained Wyatt’s complete trust, but in time also handled most of his private business. He participated in every aspect of the man’s life, including times of trouble; recalling one instance when he worried that Wyatt might shoot a journalist who had published some disparaging remarks on the family’s activities in Tombstone, thinking Earp was already dead. That affair ended with Wyatt feeling so sorry for the old scribbler that he gave him twenty dollars during one late-night encounter.

After John Flood returned from service in France during World War I, Earp asked his help in composing his autobiography, seeing it as a chance to make money. From the almost daily sessions that followed, Flood learned all the details of Earp’s life; including specifics Wyatt repeatedly cautioned could never be used in the various versions of the manuscript. In the end nothing came of the project, but Flood kept copies of the work as well as all the stenographic notes of Wyatt Earp’s verbal reminiscences.

He kept much more besides. Carbon copies of all the correspondence of Wyatt and his wife, legal papers, and countless personal items began piling up. Flood saved everything, including ticket stubs when the two men attended sporting events or a motion picture. As an example, he and Wyatt visited the Hotel Weatherford at Flagstaff, Arizona. Wyatt noted his room number on one of the hotel’s oversized business cards with a penciled flourish. Returning to Los Angeles, Flood added that card to his boxes of mementoes.

John Flood still had all those boxes when Gilchriese first knocked on his door. Over the years of their collaboration, Flood would bring out each in its turn, carefully detailing the circumstances of individual objects. There were times when the emotional burden of reliving those years proved too much and Flood broke down in tears. During those interludes John quietly stepped from the room, allowing the old man to compose himself.

In time Gilchriese and Flood began making short daytrips together, retracing steps from those earlier years with Wyatt. They started with locations around Los Angeles, homes rented by the Earps, restaurants frequented, and sites of Wyatt’s endless gambling forays. Eventually they journeyed out to the desert mining camps that had occupied so much of Earp’s later life. They also traveled to Tombstone, which Flood had first seen with Wyatt during a quick trip in the early 1920s. Until then he had never admitted doing so, perhaps in deference to Wyatt’s own paranoid obsession with secrecy.

The young novice and veteran frontiersman spent only a day in the decaying old mining camp, having come by train to Benson. Borrowing a car from a trusted friend—with the understanding that its owner keep quiet about Earp’s arrival—they drove over the old wagon road to Tombstone. Wyatt showed Flood all the important sites, so that when they started work on the manuscript he could better visualize what had happened.

No one recognized Earp, slightly stooped and dressed in a conservative gray business suit; but then, there was no reason anyone expected him to make an appearance. Walking the deserted streets, they lingered at the location of the famous gunfight, Wyatt pointing out the shallow embankment leading into the roadway from the vacant lot where it all began, explaining how his brother Morgan had tripped over an exposed pipe of the Sycamore Springs Water Company, probably saving his life that day. Earp became sadly reflective only once, in front of the spot where Campbell and Hatch’s billiard parlor and saloon once stood. It was there, on the evening of March 18, 1882, that Morgan was murdered. With an emotional voice, Earp confided to Flood, “This is the one place I can never forget.”

By late afternoon they drove back over the dirt road to Benson, catching the evening coach to Tucson and points west. Later, Wyatt drew detailed diagrams of all his Arizona battles, while again carefully explaining each sequence to Flood. In doing so he was reliving those violent days of the 1880s.

It was during his excursions with Flood that Gilchriese learned the details of Earp’s often-stormy relationship with his third wife, Josephine. They seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time arguing, often publicly, even at the mines or at their camp outside Parker, Arizona. Flood had difficulty reconciling why they stayed together, but out of respect for Wyatt kept all doubts to himself. Alice Earp Wells, who got to know both quite intimately after her own family moved to California, always felt Josephine had something on Wyatt serious enough to prevent his moving on. Others who knew them felt the same way. After all, they had met in Tombstone, where Josephine served as the paramour of Earp’s political rival, John Harris Behan, the sheriff of Cochise County. She also played the role of surrogate mother to Behan’s young son, Albert.

In Los Angeles, where Albert Behan often visited the Earps—he being one of the few people actually fond of Josephine, she missed no opportunity reminding her husband of Johnny’s prowess (despite his thirty-year bout with syphilis) or of Wyatt’s own financial shortcomings. At the Hollenbeck Hotel she repeatedly pointed out that the proprietor, Albert C. “Chris” Bilicke, Earp’s friend from Tombstone (where he had helped managed the family-owned Cosmopolitan—the account books of which still showed the Earps owing money from 1882), was now driven home to Pasadena in a chauffeured Pierce-Arrow. Bilicke had never learned to drive, nor was there any reason for him to do so, but the Earps still rode the trolley.

Another comparison for Josephine was petroleum speculator Edward L. Doheny, who as a young man worked for Wyatt Earp in Tombstone as a faro lookout at $8 a day. Now, he was not only rich beyond imagination but enjoyed the trappings of wealth, including a mansion befitting his status and a private railroad car. Josephine constantly chided Wyatt, “Look at him. He used to work for you. Now he has his own private car. We have nothing. What’s the matter with you?” Earp often responded with silence.

His wife’s constant complaining did not discourage her from coaxing a hundred dollar loan from Doheny, claiming it was for Wyatt. Earp knew nothing of the transaction, Josephine keeping all that information to herself after gambling away the money. Doheny eventually asked Wyatt about the loan. Embarrassed, Earp was forced to admit ignorance. The amused millionaire accepted the situation, but never “loaned” any more money to Mrs. Earp.

On occasion Josephine’s shortcomings proved more disastrous than embarrassing. At one point, during a somewhat debilitating illness, Wyatt instructed her to file on some oil leases in Kern County. Handing over the required fees and traveling money, along with written instructions from John Flood on what to do when she finally reached Bakersfield, he assumed everything would go smoothly. Josephine never made it to Kern County; instead she lost the money gambling at the Knickerbocker and neglected to tell her husband the sad news. Wyatt only realized what happened after discovering that the corporation representing J. Paul Getty’s family had acquired those leases. That missed opportunity must have rankled, as it may have been the closest Wyatt Earp ever came to realizing one of his recurring dreams of striking it rich.

Gilchriese took notes of it all. Many of these recollections he corroborated by other interviews—the public rows at Parker and elsewhere witnessed by many. Other stories were more circumspect, including the location of Wyatt’s secret gold mine.

When Flood arrived home from World War I, he found Wyatt playing cards on the veranda of the hotel at Parker. Seeing his friend walking up the street, Earp abandoned his game to celebrate Flood’s return. Flood was surprised to see tears in the old man’s eyes. Wyatt brushed them aside as he informed his friend in a hushed voice of finding “quartz gold.” Flood pressured him for details and was told all about the place, located along the Colorado River on Indian reservation land.

Worried about the implications of filing a claim on government land, Wyatt never did allow its location to become public knowledge. Flood estimated that Earp took out at least $16,000, not an inconsiderable sum in those days. For obvious reasons, even Josephine was kept in the dark regarding details. Of course, most of the money was lost in poker games, but some was used for support and other schemes. Flood showed Gilchriese the site, which had clearly been worked years before. John took numerous photographs of the location, but otherwise left it undisturbed, another silent legacy to Earp’s memory.

While visiting one of their old campsites, Flood told Gilchriese of actually seeing something of the legendary Wyatt Earp. Flood had just come back from Needles after putting a distinctly grumpy Josephine on the train to Los Angeles. Usually that was enough to put Mr. Earp in a better mood, but on this particular day there was no improvement. Leaving Wyatt alone, Flood left camp to check on some claims he had staked out for himself. Returning, he nervously blurted out that some outsiders had knocked over his markers and put up their own.

Wyatt was sitting outside his tent, near a camp table stacked with dishes he had just washed. Earp disliked that particular chore, and at such times actually missed Josephine’s presence. Quietly smoking a cigar he replied, “Well, Flood, do you want those claims or not? If you do, go out there and kick their markers over.” Feeling empowered John Flood did just that. Before long three men rode into camp and began demanding to know just what Flood thought he was doing. Without taking his eyes off the obvious leader of the trio, Wyatt explained that the claims belonged to his friend, and for them to get out of his camp.

In no mood to be dismissed by an old codger, the leader dismounted and kicked the table over, scattering all the clean dishes into the dirt. Flood had no idea what to do but was stunned by the quickness of Earp’s reaction. Ignoring the shotgun propped against the tent some five feet away, he instead seemed to retrieve out of nowhere a large revolver. With a steady hand he now held all three intruders in his line of fire. Fearing violence, the leader stammered, “What’s all this about, who the hell are you?” The reply came in a cold steady voice, “My name is Wyatt Earp.” John Flood may not have understood the significance when he first heard the name, but these three needed no explanation. Perhaps seeing images of dead men in Tombstone—they were, after all, starring down the barrel of the same revolver used against the Clantons and McLaurys on that famous day in 1881—the trio stumbled over each other’s apologies as they fled the scene. There was no more trouble, everyone keeping a safe distance in the weeks that followed, but John Flood was left with a clearer understanding of his friend’s reputation.

Gilchriese relished all these stories. He also trusted Flood’s veracity and greatly admired the old man’s continued loyalty to Wyatt Earp; an attribute later extended to Josephine, despite many unreasonable demands and an increasingly disagreeable manner. Shortly before his death on March 29, 1958, Flood returned John’s affection by adding his own holdings to the Gilchriese Collection. Many of these items are finally being offered for sale.

With Flood’s passing, Gilchriese reflected on some of the circumstances surrounding Wyatt’s own death nearly thirty years before. Josephine refused to attend the funeral, not from grief as some have suggested, but because she would not be seen in public without a new dress she could not afford. Flood begged her to reconsider, but she ignored his pleas and the ceremony went on without her. The future would offer scant improvement in her fortunes. When she died in 1944, Josephine’s entire estate consisted of one trunk, a radio, and five small boxes of personal effects. Total value: $175.

Wyatt Earp was cremated. Before arrangements were made for burial at the Hills of Eternity Cemetery south of San Francisco, his ashes were returned to his old residence at 4004 W. 17th Street. Shortly after the funeral, Josephine launched into a tirade, cursing her deceased husband for leaving her with so little. In her rage she threw the container of ashes against the wall. The lid popped open and some of the contents fell to the floor. Stunned, John Flood watched in horror as Josephine pushed the lid back in place, and without a word swept what remained on the carpet out onto the front stoop.

Gilchriese could not help thinking of his boyhood hero buried so far away while some of his ashes were left scattered in front of his house in Los Angeles. For John it seemed as if Wyatt’s discarded remains marked the end of his own journey. True, he would still acquire additional items on both Wyatt Earp and Tombstone, but all the important questions had been answered; answered with the help and encouragement of a host of friends, and with special memories of John Flood, Billy Hattich, Judge Curtis, Frank Waters, and Dr. Frederick Webb Hodge. It was also time to reflect again on all the kindness offered at the Southwest Museum to a wide-eyed kid with all of life beckoning and everything to learn.

Wm. B. Shillingberg
Tucson, Arizona
March 19, 2004

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