Why is Warren Earp hardly mentioned in the movies?

Kunni Lee

Via the Internet

Warren was the youngest Earp brother and played a minor role in the Earps’ storied exploits in Arizona’s Cochise County (he wasn’t with his brothers at the infamous O.K. Corral gunfight). But Warren acquired his nickname “Tiger” because, like his brothers, he, too, was game. “He’s a square man,” a newspaper reported, “but he will fight when necessary … He’s a holy terror when he gets started.”

Warren joined Wyatt after their brother Morgan’s assassination in March 1882 and was present at the killing of Frank Stilwell (see Classic Gunfights, May 2005) and Florentino Cruz. He went with Wyatt to Colorado but later returned to Cochise County, where he worked as a cowhand at the Sierra Bonita Ranch and as a teamster. He was killed on July 6, 1900, during a saloon fight in Willcox. Although he is left out of earlier books and movies, Warren figures more prominently in recent films like Tombstone and Casey Tefertiller’s book Wyatt Earp.

In 2000, Michael Hickey wrote The Death of Warren Baxter Earp, which is over 700 pages long and should help make up for the ink and film he didn’t get earlier.

Marshall Trimble is Arizona’s official historian.

His books include The Arizona Trilogy and Law of the Gun.

If you have a question, write: Ask the Marshall,

PO Box 8008, Cave Creek, AZ 85327 or e-mail him at marshall.trimble@sccmail.maricopa.edu