40 Facts About the Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

40 Facts About the Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

Larry Holzwarth - June 14, 2019

40 Facts About the Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp as he appeared when he fled from Peoria and various civil and criminal charges. History.com

4. He was charged with running a brothel in Peoria

In 1872, Earp’s downward spiral continued when he was arrested, along with his brother Morgan and several women, under a charge of keeping a brothel. They were fined and released. That fall he was arrested yet again, for operating another brothel aboard a steamship he owned. A woman arrested with him by the name of Sally Heckell claimed to be his wife. Earp later claimed to spend the years 1873 and 1874 on a buffalo hunt, though there is no evidence of him actually doing so. With Peoria no longer hospitable to him he and Sally – who called herself Sarah Earp, traveled to Wichita, where his brother James Earp operated yet another brothel, arriving in the booming cattle town in 1874.

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