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.