Earp was involved in the gunfight at the O. Corral , during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys. Marshal and Tombstone City Marshal that day and had considerably more experience in law enforcement as a sheriff, constable, and marshal than did Wyatt. Virgil made the decision to enforce a city ordinance prohibiting carrying weapons in town and to disarm the Cowboys. Wyatt was only a temporary assistant marshal to his brother. In , Earp arrived in the boomtown of Wichita, Kansas , where his reputed wife opened a brothel.
Wyatt was arrested more than once for his presence in a brothel where he may have been a pimp. In late , he went to Texas to track down an outlaw, Dave Rudabaugh , and met John "Doc" Holliday , whom Earp credited with saving his life.
Throughout his life, Earp moved between boom towns. He left Dodge in and moved with his brothers James and Virgil to Tombstone where a silver boom was underway. The Earps clashed with a group of outlaws known as the " Cowboys ".
The conflict escalated, culminating in the shootout at the O. During the next five months, Virgil was ambushed and maimed, and Morgan was murdered. Wyatt, Warren Earp , Doc Holliday, and others formed a federal posse that killed three more Cowboys whom they thought responsible. Wyatt was never wounded in any of the gunfights, unlike his brothers Virgil and Morgan or Doc Holliday, which added to his mystique after his death. After leaving Tombstone, Earp went to San Francisco where he reunited with Josephine Marcus , and they lived as husband and wife.
They joined a gold rush to Eagle City, Idaho, where they owned mining interests and a saloon. Back in San Francisco, Wyatt raced horses, but his reputation suffered irreparably when he refereed the Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey boxing match and called a foul, which led many to believe he fixed the fight. Earp and Marcus joined the Nome Gold Rush in Around , Earp began working several mining claims in Vidal, California , retiring in the hot summers with Josephine to one of several small, modest cottages they rented in Los Angeles.
