page_title: Wyatt Earp
section_title: Saloon ownership and gambling
hierarchical_section_title: Wyatt Earp / Life after Tombstone / Saloon ownership and gambling
caption_attribution_description: English: Exterior of the Hollenbeck Hotel on the corner of Spring Street and Second Street, Los Angeles, ca.1900-1905 Photograph of the exterior of the Hollenbeck Hotel on the corner of Spring Street and Second Street, Los Angeles, ca.1900-1905. The four-story Victorian brick building has a five-story octagonal tower over the main entrance on the corner. There are unfurled awnings at street level. Several automobiles are parked along the curb. A horse-drawn wagon drives down one street at right. A streetcar is visible at left. The perspective looks down through the electrical lines running over streetcar rails. Numerous pedestrians are on the sidewalks and in the street. A street cleaner is sweeping the street directly in front of the hotel entrance. Call number: CHS-2346 Legacy record ID: chs-m1264; USC-1-1-1-1309 Filename: CHS-2346 Coverage date: circa 1900/1905 Part of collection: California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960 Type: images Geographic subject (city or populated place): Los Angeles Repository name: USC Libraries Special Collections Accession number: 2346 Microfiche number: 1-9-23 Archival file: chs_Volume26/CHS-2346.tiff Part of subcollection: Title Insurance and Trust, and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection, 1860-1960 Repository address: Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 Geographic subject (country): USA Format (aacr2): 2 photographs&#160;: glass photonegative, photoprint, b&amp;w&#160;; 21 x 26 cm., 20 x 25 cm. Rights: Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library; From the California Historical Society Collection at the University of Southern California Subject (adlf): buildings Project: USC Repository email: specol@usc.edu Contributing entity: California Historical Society Date created: circa 1900/1905 Publisher (of the digital version): University of Southern California. Libraries Format (aat): photographic prints; photographs Geographic subject (state): California Subject (file heading): Los Angeles -- Architecture -- Commercial -- Hotels #3 Format: glass plate negatives Access conditions: Send requests to address or e-mail given. Phone (213) 821-2366; fax (213) 740-2343. Geographic subject (county): Los Angeles Geographic subject (roadway): Spring Street &amp; 2nd Street Subject (lcsh): Hotels, taverns, etc. Subject: Hollenbeck Hotel; Hotels
context_page_description: Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an Old West lawman and gambler in Cochise County, Arizona Territory, and a deputy marshal in Tombstone. He worked in a wide variety of trades throughout his life and took part in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cochise County Cowboys. He is often erroneously regarded as the central figure in the shootout, although his brother Virgil was the Tombstone City and Deputy U.S. Marshal that day, and had far more experience in combat as a sheriff, constable, marshal, and soldier.
  Earp was at different times a professional gambler, teamster, and buffalo hunter. Over his lifetime, he owned several saloons, maintained a brothel, mined for silver and gold, and refereed boxing matches. He spent his early life in Pella, Iowa. In 1870, he married Urilla Sutherland, who contracted typhoid fever and died in childbirth. During the next two years, Earp was arrested for stealing a horse, escaped from jail, and was sued twice. He was arrested and fined three times in 1872 for "keeping and being found in a house of ill-fame".
context_section_description: Earp arrived in Seattle with a plan to open a saloon and gambling room. On November 25, 1899, the Seattle Star described him as "a man of great reputation among the toughs and criminals, inasmuch as he formerly walked the streets of a rough frontier mining town with big pistols stuck in his belt, spurs on his boots, and a devil-may-care expression upon his official face". The Seattle Daily Times was less full of praise, announcing in a very small article that he had a reputation in Arizona as a "bad man", which in that era was synonymous with "villain" and "desperado".
  He faced considerable opposition to his plan from John Considine, who controlled all three gaming operations in town. Although gambling was illegal, Considine had worked out an agreement with Police Chief C. S. Reed. Earp partnered with an established local gambler named Thomas Urguhart, and they opened the Union Club saloon and gambling operation in Seattle's Pioneer Square. The Seattle Star noted two weeks later that Earp's saloon was earning a large following. Considine unsuccessfully tried to intimidate Earp, but his saloon continued to prosper. After the city failed to act, on March 23, 1900, the Washington state attorney general filed charges against several gamblers, including Earp and his partner. The club's furnishings were confiscated and burned. The Earps returned briefly to San Francisco in April 1900, but soon continued on to Seattle.
  Newspapers in Seattle and San Francisco falsely reported on Wyatt's wealth which prompted a stampede to Nome to seek similar riches. Nome was advertised as an "exotic summer destination" and four ships a day left Seattle with passengers infected with "gold fever".
  On June 14, 1900, Wyatt and Sadie boarded the steamer SS Alliance in Seattle, bound for Nome. They brought many luxurious accessories with them to decorate The Dexter.  Within weeks Nome had grown to a city of over 20,000 inhabitants. In 1900, the major business there "was not mining, but gambling and saloon trade. There were 100 saloons and gambling houses, with an occasional restaurant." Losses of $10,000 per hand in poker were not extraordinary. Prize fighting became the sport of choice and Wyatt's income soared with side bets. He often refereed bouts himself at The Dexter.
  In November 1901, at age 40, Sadie got pregnant again, and she and Wyatt decided to leave Alaska. They sold their interest in the Dexter to their partner, Charlie Hoxie.
  Wyatt and Sadie left Alaska on board the SS Roanoke and arrived in Los Angeles at the Hollenbeck Hotel on December 13, 1901. They had an estimated $80,000, a relative fortune (equivalent to about $2,460,000 today). Sadie miscarried and lost the baby. Three months later, in February 1902, they arrived in Tonopah, Nevada, known as the "Queen of the Silver Camps", where silver and gold had been discovered in 1900 and a boom was under way. Wyatt and Sadie opened the Northern Saloon in Tonopah and he served as a deputy U.S. marshal under Marshal J.F. Emmitt. His saloon, oil, and copper mining interests produced some income for a period.
  After Tonopah's gold strike waned, they moved in 1905 to Goldfield, Nevada, where his brother Virgil and his wife were living. Tex Rickard was also already there and had opened a second Northern Saloon. He hired Wyatt as a pit boss. Wyatt also staked mining claims just outside Death Valley and elsewhere in the Mojave Desert. In 1906, he discovered several deposits of gold and copper near the Sonoran Desert town of Vidal, California, on the Colorado River and filed more than 100 mining claims near the Whipple Mountains. While in Los Angeles, they lived in at least nine small Los Angeles rentals as early as 1885 and as late as 1929, mostly in the summer.
caption: The Earps stayed at the Hollenback Hotel in Los Angeles in December 1901 after returning from Alaska.
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