Old West: Wyatt Earp - Was a Pimp in Peoria!

So let's see, in 1871 Wyatt Earp was arrested for being a Horse Thief and escaped from jail.  My thought is that since he was on the run from the law in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma), he must have left there as fast as a stolen horse could carry him.

Some say he didn't show up again until he was in Wichita, Kansas.  Some have called it Wyatt's "lost year," but it wasn't lost at all.

And where did he go, you ask?

Well, some believe he most likely went back to Illinois because there are newspaper reports putting him there in 1872.  Supposedly he ended up in Peoria, Illinois, where Virgil was working as a bartender.

So here was the Wyatt Earp that I never heard of as a kid.  Here was the Wyatt Earp in his mid-20s who was already acquiring a reputation, though of dubious one - it was a reputation.

He was on the run from Federal authorities for stealing horses and I'm sure he was grateful that the law in those days didn't always communicate.  Fact is, Wyatt stayed on the run for a while before returning out West again.

Wyatt needed money and was not one to walk on the seedier side of life to get it.  Fact is that Wyatt Earp began working as a pimp in Peoria.  And yes, he was actually known as the "Peoria Bummer" because Wyatt was involved in the ownership and operation of a brothel.  

In fact, on February 24, 1872, Wyatt and his brother Morgan were arrested for “Keeping and Being Found In A House Of Ill-Fame.”

The brothel that was raided was being run by a gal by the name of Jane Haspel.  Four women and three men were arrested that day in an effort to clean up Peoria. Peoria Mayor Peter Brotherson and Police Chief Samuel L. Gill were on a quest to clean up the city and stop prostitution.  Two days after that arrest, a Peoria judge fined Wyatt and Morgan $20 each plus court costs.

Wyatt continued to reside in Jane Haspel's brothel, and in fact Wyatt Earp was listed in the Peoria City Directory as residing there.  Yes, it is a fact that Root's Peoria City Directory for 1872-1873 lists Wyatt Earp living at the same address as Jane Haspel on Washington Street near the corner of Hamilton.

Since the city directory went to press on March 1, 1872, and putting it together took months, it's extremely probable that Wyatt was residing in the brothel and not merely patronizing it at the time of his arrest.

But Wyatt's troubles in Peoria didn't end with his February arrest.  Three months later, Wyatt and Morgan were arrested again on May 9th.  This time they moved to the McClellan brothel to pimp their trade.

On May 11, 1872, The Daily Transcript, reported the following:

"That hotbed of inequity, the McClellan Institute on Main Street near Water was pulled on Thursday night, and quite a number of inmates transient and otherwise were found therein.  Wyatt Earp and his brother Morgan Earp were each fined $44.55 and as they had not the money and would not work, they languished in the cold and silent calaboose"

Wyatt decided that he should relocate his business to the Illinois River and started a floating brothel named the Beardstown Gunboat.

In August 1872, Wyatt was "detained" again by authorities.  But this time it was in Henry, Illinois, and again fined. 

Then a month later on September 10, 1872, back in Peoria, the Daily Transcript in a very lengthy account of the police raid on the floating brothel reported that Wyatt Earp had been arrested in the raid on the Beardstown Gunboat.

That raid must have net some big fish, because that arrest is said to be the single largest successful raid on a brothel in Peoria during all of 1872.  

This is part of the newpaper account that The Peoria Daily National Democrat ran on September 10: 

"Some of the women are said to be good looking, but all appear to be terribly depraved.  John Walton, the skipper of the boat and Wyatt Earp, the Peoria Bummer, were each fined $43.15.  Sarah Earp, alias Sally Heckell, calls herself the wife of Wyatt Earp."

Two days after the seizure of the gunboat, all of the prisoners were lined up before Police Magistrate James Cunningham in Peoria's City Hall.  Wyatt's fine was the highest of all of the people arrested.  After paying his fine, Wyatt Earp, "The Peoria Bummer," is said to have left the area.

The newspapers of the time referred to Wyatt Earp as "The Peoria Bummer."  A "bummer" during those days was a term used for a "loafer" or a "beggar."  It was an insulting way of calling Wyatt a man who solicits for a prostitute or brothel and lives off the earnings.

But the interesting thing to me, that along with naming Wyatt Earp, the newspapers stated that that police arrested a women by the name of "Sarah Earp, alias Sally Heckell," who claimed to be his wife.

Could this woman have been another wife of Wyatt Earp?  Is she one wife that most Western Historians neglect to mention?

It is generally assumed that Wyatt Earp was "married" three times, but the only marriage license that exists is when he was married to his first wife, Urilla Sutherland.  They were wed on January 10, 1870 in Lamar, Missouri.  Then supposedly because of illness, some say typhoid, Urilla died less than a year later.

No official record has ever been found that proves that Wyatt was married to either of his other so-called "wives," Mattie Blaylock and Josephine Sarah "Sadie" Marcus Earp, though he maintained a life with both of them.  It is said that Josie claimed they did get married, but again there is nothing to prove that.  It is taken for granted that these two were "common-law" marriages.

So was Sarah Earp simply a prostitute who had taken the name of her pimp?  Could she really have been his wife?  Very little is know about her.

The newspaper article gives her 'alias' as Sally Heckell, but while that name may have been assumed in whole or in part, it was very likely that that may have been her real name or maybe something close to it.

There is evidence that points to Sarah Earp, Sally Heckell, Sally Haskell and Sally Haspel, as all being one and the same person.  But really, who knows?

By early 1874 when Wyatt showed up in the fairly new cattle town of Wichita, Kansas.  Municipal records show that a prostitute using the name Sally Earp operated a brothel with Wyatt Earp's sister-in-law Bessie in Wichita from early 1874 to the middle of 1876.

It was a brothel that Wyatt made a living off of while he provided it protection, after all Wyatt did become a Deputy in Wichita - and honestly, just how much more protection can you get when your pimp is also a policeman.  

As one writer put it, "Some Wyatt worshippers continue to whitewash this damning evidence with the wishful thinking that Wyatt Earp was merely a bouncer on these floating brothel boats."

Well friends, we know that Wyatt Earp was arrested for stealing horses, operating and being involved in prostitution, bunco games, and swindles during his life.  So my conclusion is yes, not only was Wyatt Earp a horse thief, he was also a pimp!

Story by Tom Correa