The 'Other' Earp's Mystery Grave

THE 'OTHER' EARP, BABY BROTHER WARREN Tough and Courageous as His Famous Siblings, He's the Only One Buried in Arizona

The old graveyard southeast of Railroad Avenue in Willcox looks the part-desolate, flat and dusty. A few crosses, headstones and pieces of wood mark final resting places. Adding to the sense of being lost and forlorn in the days of gunfights and cattle rustling, freight trains rumble through the town with the melancholy sounds of life heading for somewhere else. Ah, well, people like Warren Baxter Earp seem destined to end up in a place like this.Catch the name? Earp, as in Wyatt and Morgan and Virgil, the fraternal triad who marched down the streets of Tombstone. Brother James also lived in Tombstone in those days of the O.K. Corral. And then there was Warren, the youngest of the five sons born to Nicholas and Virginia Earp. Warren, too, played a role in the Tombstone saga, but you wouldn't know that by Hollywood.

Wyatt first captured the attention of the newspapers before his death in 1929, but Hollywood made him a lasting legend. Many movies have dealt with the 1881 saga of the Earp brothers, including My Darling Clementine (1946), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), and Tombstone (1993). In these movies, Wyatt stars with Virgil and Morgan in supporting roles, and James is mentioned. But not a word about Warren. He does show up in Wyatt Earp (1994), appearing in the opening as the baby brother. He reappears after the gunfight seeking revenge for Morgan's murder and again in a scene of someone who may or may not have been him riding the last horse out of a canyon. So much for Warren."Unappreciated," says Michael M. Hickey, author of The Death of Warren Baxter Earp: A Closer Look. He describes Wyatt as "showbiz," gives Virgil credit for his courage, sees James as "likeable" and Morgan as "devil may care."

"And then," he says, "into this mix comes Warren."

Warren came into this life in Pella, Iowa, in 1855, the baby of the family. Brothers James and Virgil fought for the North in the Civil War. In the 1870s,

...AS USUAL THE WRONG MAN WAS SHOT.'

Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt took up gambling and policing, with James never too far away. Meanwhile, their parents moved from the Midwest to California, finally set-tling near San Bernardino, California.

A photograph of Warren taken in the 1890s captures the good looks of the Earp boys, with a touch of sensitivity around the mouth behind the mask of his moustache. Warren also had the height of the Earps, 6 feet. That height would figure in the controversy surrounding his death 20 years later in a Willcox saloon.

Hickey claims the man had another mark of the Earps. “No question as to (his) courage,” he states. He cites as proof, “The way he stood up with his brothers and took the place of Morgan.” As correctly depicted in the movie Wyatt Earp, Warren joined his brothers in Tombstone shortly after the October 26, 1881, gunfight. On December 28, an ambush left Virgil with a crippled left arm. The murder of Morgan came in March 1882, shot in the back while playing billiards with Wyatt. Warren joined with Wyatt, Doc Holliday and a small band of men to hunt down the killers. Hickey figures the avengers killed at least seven men before they slipped away. Holliday died in Colorado of tuberculosis in 1887. Wyatt began a long life of travels with his ladylove, the actress Josephine Sarah Marcus. Warren, before going home to California, enjoyed a moment of notoriety.

In 1882, the Gunnison News-Democrat of Gunnison, Colorado, published an interview with him. Referring to him as “Tiger,” the reporter wrote the blue-eyed young man didn't look much like a fighter, but added, “He's a holy terror when he gets started.” Not exactly the best press you could hope for, but the best Warren would get for the rest of his life. Oh, he did make a name for himself. In 1883, the Santa Barbara Daily Press wrote of his involvement in a shooting in Colton, California, and commented, “...as usual the wrong man was shot.” The story earned Earp a description in the New Mexico Silver City Enterprise as “the most quarrelsome of the Earp brothers.” In 1884, Warren got into a messy altercation involving a waiter and a pickle bottle in a French restaurant in San Bernardino. “Warren Earp has been getting into trouble again,” reported the San Bernardino Index. The Arizona Daily Star carried the story and described Earp as “well remembered in Ari-zona for his daring acts of lawlessness.” He shot off a bartender's thumb in 1885 and got involved in a stabbing in 1893, but he drew only a brief arrest, a fine and a couple inches of print.

However, a fight with a Professor Behrens on a bridge in Yuma in November 1893 earned Warren more attention. By newspaper accounts, Earp “seized the professor by the neck and endeavored to throw him off the bridge.” The professor hung on for dear life. An interesting period of negotiation followed.

Earp demanded $100, but said he'd settle for $50. The professor, apparently very good at this, offered Earp $25 to be picked up at the professor's home. The professor went home and waited there with the police for Warren's arrival.

The incidents raise questions about Warren's brainpower or his blood-alcohol level, as he was well known as a drinker and a bartender. In this case, a jurisdiction question may have saved Warren from a long, dry stretch in prison. The assault on the professor took place on a bridge crossing the Colorado River. Where then did the crime actually occur, California or Arizona? Warren offered to take the problem out of town on the next train.

In an inky goodbye wave, the local paper concluded, “No man has left Yuma for years that was more pleased to get away.” Warren made his final stop in the cow town of Willcox. The railroad gave the town an economic boost in 1881 and provided the ranchers with easy access to the beef markets of the East and West. Tens of thou-sands of head shipped out of Willcox every year. Cow-town problems prevailed-rus-tling, robberies and murders. Folks didn't necessarily like the Earps and the uptight law and order they represented.

Still, Warren found work in Willcox as a stagecoach driver, a bartender and a range detective keeping an eye and an ear on the business of rustling.

“I think he went back to just make something of himself,” author Hickey says.

Instead, Warren got himself shot dead on July 6, 1900, at the Headquarters Saloon at the corner of Railroad Avenue and Maley Street.

Witnesses said John Boyett, a local ranch foreman, did the shooting. According to testimony, the unarmed Earp kept walking toward Boyett in a taunting way and told him to get his guns. Boyett went out and got some guns and, sure enough, shot him. While Boyett held the smoking gun, a judge found no reason to have him tried.

The medical examination showed that the fatal bullet entered below the collarbone and passed through Warren's heart in a downward trajectory. That makes for interesting shooting, as John Boyett stood no taller than 5 feet 6 inches. Some note that to get off a downward shot into the 6-foot-tall Earp, Boyett must have been standing over him, on a chair or hanging from a chandelier.

Reportedly, Virgil and Wyatt showed up in Willcox with their own questions about their brother's death. At the time, Virgil lived in Prescott, Arizona, and Wyatt in Nome, Alaska. Could they have made the trip? Some say yes. Speculation continues on whether they took their questions and their vengeance to their brother's killer.

John Boyett disappeared from Arizona within months of the shooting, but in 1996 an investigator found his grave in a family plot in Comal County, Texas. The stone indicated his date of death as 1919. However, discrepancies in the date of birth and the death certificate raised more questions. If Boyett rests in that grave, when did he get there?

Questions also swirl around Warren Earp's grave back in Willcox.

They buried Warren in an unmarked grave the day he died. Decades later, a wooden marker went up, but not necessarily on or near the original burial site. In 2002, locals dedicated a massive metal marker and slab on a different site-still not necessarily the right one.

Since 2000, Willcox has served as a place for writers of Western history and lore to exchange facts and opinions on such topics as gunfights and graves. In that year, Hickey, a resident of Hawaii, joined Willcox civic supporters in inaugurating the first annual Warren Earp Days. The town continues to hold the annual event with historic re-enactments, quick-draw contests, book signings and other public activities.

Not everyone in southern Arizona celebrates. People there have long memories. To some, Warren earns no more than a label of "scoundrel," "no-account" or "bum." Others, like Kathy Klump, president of Willcox's Sulphur Springs Valley Historical Society, accepts his legacy. As she points out, "He's the only Earp buried in Arizona."

Not much to say about a man's claim to fame, perhaps, but down in that little graveyard across the tracks, with that new marker, Warren Baxter Earp finally stands heads and shoulders above the rest. Al

THINGS TO DO AROUND TOMBSTONE AND WILLCOX TOMBSTONE BIRD CAGE THEATRE

A real "hole-in-the-wall." There are reportedly 140 bullet holes in the walls of this fully restored theaterturned-museum where the Earps, Doc Holliday and other Tombstone toughs were able to enjoy a variety of vices, 24 hours a day. (520) 457-3421; www.tombstone.org.

C.S. FLY'S GALLERY

Doc Holliday, who lived in C.S. Fly's boardinghouse, was known for a famous shooting, and so was Fly. See his renowned 1886 photographs of Apache warrior Geronimo and other images that captured the Old West in this gallery located in the O.K. Corral complex. (520) 457-3456.

HELLDORADO TOWN

In this Tombstone theme park, Old West gun battles, including those of the Earps and their enemies, are continually re-enacted. (520) 457-9035; www.helldoradotown.com.

O.K. CORRAL

The Earps and Doc Holliday ended their time in Tombstone six months after ending the lives of Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers near this famed spot. (520) 457-3456; www.ok-corral.com.

TOMBSTONE ΕΡΙΤΑΡH MUSEUM

The Earps' most memorable moments were recorded, written and printed by this Old West newspaper. Originally located across from the O.K. Corral, the operation relocated to this building (now a museum) in 1927. (520) 457-2211; www.tombstone.org.

TOMBSTONE COURTHOUSE STATE HISTORIC PARK

Outvoted by Bisbee in 1929, Tombstone lost the Cochise County seat. This former 1882 Cochise County Courthouse was restored in the late 1950s and has since been a state park. (520) 457-3311; www.pr.state. az.us/Parks/parkhtml/tombstone.html.

For more information: Tombstone Chamber of Commerce, (888) 457-3929; www.tombstone.org. For more information: Willcox Chamber of Commerce, toll-free (800) 2002272; www.willcoxchamber.com.

WILLCOX

Located about 82 miles east of Tucson. From Tucson, take Interstate 10 east 82 miles to Willcox.

HISTORIC RAILROAD AVENUE

While you can't walk a mile in Warren Earp's shoes, you're apt to follow his footsteps if you wander down this historic street. The former Headquarters Saloon, once located on the corner of Railroad Avenue and Maley Street, is where Earp took his last drink and his last breath.

THE OLD WILLCOX CEMETERY

Here lies Warren, the only Earp buried in Arizona. Third Avenue ends at the old Willcox Cemetery, where the recently erected Warren Earp memorial is located, very noticeably, in the back, and his remains, not so noticeably, somewhere underneath.