From Dodge, Virgil and Allie moved to Prescott, the territorial capital of Arizona. There, in October 1877, Virgil Earp was quickly deputized by Yavapai County Sheriff Ed Bowers during a street fight and helped several lawmen shoot down two hard cases. In 1878, Virgil served in Prescott as a village night watchman for a couple of months and was elected a constable. On November 27, 1879, he was appointed a U.S. deputy marshal in Arizona Territory. The next month he came to Tombstone. After the shooting death of the town’s marshal, Fred White, in October 1880 (see The Winding Trail of Curly Bill in the October 2001 Wild West), Virgil Earp was appointed acting marshal. He only served until November 12, when he lost a special election to Ben Sippy. After Tombstone achieved city status in January 1881, the incumbent Sippy defeated Virgil Earp in another election. But on June 6, 1881, Mayor John Clum appointed Earp city marshal after Sippy abandoned his badge.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Wild West magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Marshal Earp, who doubled as U.S. deputy marshal, was busy that summer arresting citizens for mostly minor offenses, but when he arrested Frank Stilwell and Pete Spence for stage robbery, bitterness between the so-called Cowboys and the Earp faction grew. Marshal Earp and his three deputies came out on top in the famous shootout that October — Billy Clanton and the McLaury brothers were killed — but Virgil was suspended from his job, and then on December 28, three concealed men shot him down. It was unclear whether Virgil would survive his wounds. Ike Clanton, who had survived the O.K. Corral shootout by running away, was a suspect, as were Stilwell, Spence and John Ringo. Virgil did not die, but he lost the use of his left arm. After brother Morgan was gunned down on March 18, 1882, Wyatt made sure that Virgil, Allie and other family members accompanied Morgan’s coffin to Nicholas Earp’s home in Colton, Calif. At the train station in Tucson on March 20, the Earps spotted Stilwell and killed him.

Crippled Virgil could not help Wyatt seek further vengeance against the Cowboys in Arizona Territory, but in California the former marshal did not stay out of action for long. In 1883, there was a railroad fight in the Colton area, some 60 miles east of Los Angeles. The old Southern Pacific Railroad line was trying to hold back the upstart California Southern, a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. Intent on connecting railroad-starved San Diego with the main line of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe tracks at Waterman Junction (later called Barstow), California Southern workers laid tracks north and east until they approached the Southern Pacific tracks in Colton that August. The older railroad company refused to allow the workers to cross their tracks.

At the planned crossing site, the Southern Pacific parked a locomotive and tender, which was only moved to allow passage of the company’s own trains. Southern Pacific officials kept an engineer in the cab along with a company-hired gunslinger — Virgil Earp. Armed with guns and a Tombstone reputation, special railroad agent Earp did his job well. Even after the courts ruled the crossing should be allowed, Earp kept the California Southern work crew at bay.

Colton citizens were loyal to the Southern Pacific, but over in San Bernardino, which had been bypassed earlier by the Southern Pacific line, folks became increasingly upset. They expected the California Southern line to put San Bernardino back on the map. Things reached a head on September 13 with an incident that was quickly dubbed the Battle of the Crossing. That morning, citizens on both sides began to gather — the ones from San Bernardino on the north and the ones from Colton on the south, with the Southern Pacific locomotive square in the middle. On both sides of the tracks, men carried picks, shovels, shotguns and revolvers. Virgil Earp paced the gangway between cab and tender with his face toward the San Bernardino mob and his six-shooter in hand.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to