Without Further Ado—The "New" Wyatt Earp Photo

[Bob Boze Bell]

April 16, 2012

Busy weekend working on the O.K. Project. Spent half of it on a sexy nurse who will administer to our protagonist who is in an assisted living facility. He's being touted as the last Baby Boomer. More to follow.

 

Meanwhile, here it is, the photo that has lit up boards all across the globe. It appears to be Wyatt Earp in about 1926:

 

Thanks to Nicholas Narog for sharing this photo with me. To my eye this is Wyatt Earp; the pronounced ear against white hair, the jawline, and the white mustache really matches my idea of the man. The most amazing thing, though, is what appears to be cowboy boots. Notice the underslung heels and you can see, what appears to be, the outline of the boot tops showing against his pants legs.

 

It apparently came out of the John Flood collection and was kept for years in the Bisbee area. Nick is quite upfront about the details of the purchase saying that he thinks it was in John Gilchriese's short-lived Wyatt Earp Museum in Tombstone in the early 1970s.

 

That said, the background is problematic. it doesn't look like California or Arizona. Has a Midwestern look and feel. And, what the hell is he looking at? A buried dog dish? A hubcap off a 1926 Packard?

 

Here are Bob McCubbin's concerns:

 

"I know a lot of people who follow the auctions and have not heard about this photo appearing, which I would not have if everyone thought it was phony.

"I really do not think the photo was ever in Gilchriese's Tombstone Museum or ever in his collection.  I do think that I saw every photo that he owned.

"Anyway, a collector would wonder why Nick seems to be evasive of facts that he should know.  The decision has to be made entirely on a visual comparison.  From what I can see, and for what it is worth, I don't think it is Wyatt."
—Bob McCubbin

Here are more comments from Bob McCubbin.

 

Well, what do you think?

 

"The eye of the buyer is in the beholder."

—Old Vaquero Saying

 

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[Kevin Hogge]

My mistake Bob, yes, I meant Lotta Crabtree. That's what I get for chiming in when I should have been working Ha!

[anthony martin]

  Nick,

    As folks begin to cruise into thei 50's and 60's the earlobes and nose tip do tend to enlongate a bit along with losing some body height.Along with that usually comes killer eyebrows and lengthening of nose hair  and long hairs sprouting from the ears!This fellow looks 70 ish but the clothing and photo format looks to be at least 10-15 years earlier  than the mid 20's and Earp looked far more robust then.

[Nicholas Narog]

Anthony- when you first mentioned the photo format I dug into my family's photograph collection. I found a group of cabinet card photographs of my great grandparents dated 1934. I know they were not very popular after 1920 but they were still made.

[Bob Boze Bell]

We are currently at 980 page views. At this rate we are going to cross the 1,000 mark this evening. Amazing.

[Nicholas Narog]

Indeed! I never expected this photograph to create so much excitement! 

I think we can all agree, no matter if we believe this to be a photograph of Wyatt Earp or not... that this is one fantastic photograph!

[Chet Rollins]

Hey Nick,

Thank you for having the courage to share this photo!

[John R Wice]

I pulled out every book with every Wyatt Earp photograph, young and old today to compare.  The man in the photo is similar but he does not seem to be as tall, or leggy as Earp.  When looking closely the man in this photo does not appear to have as large a nose as Wyatt Earp.  Usually I am critical in inspecting weapons, saddles etc, not photos and it would be great if this were Wyatt Earp.

[Daniel Buck]

Not my field of expertise -- very little is -- but the ears are key.  The US military takes face and ear photos of detainees in Afghanistan for identification purposes. Many faces look alike, especially in profile; few ears do.   Let's see some enlargements for comparison.  Dan

[Nicholas Narog]

The ears look more alike than you think. Stay tuned for when I get a better scan of the image and you can see for yourselves.

[Carbine]

I hope this is Wyatt, but I have my doubts. In Wyatts later years he spent all of his time, as far as I know, in Los Angeles California or way east of there along the Colorado River. Looking at the background of this photo one needs to take into consideration that in the teens and early 20s, of the 20th century, the roads in LA were "oiled" to keep down the dust and help prevent erosion. The road Wyatt is standing on does not appear "oiled".

As to the Trees; they appear to be Cottonwoods or Sycamores, that have lost their leaves due to late fall or winter setting in, and as "Wyatt" is dressed for. If this were somewhere along the Colorado I believe the trees keep thier leaves all year long. So if this is Wyatt in his later years I think it was taken someplace other than Los Angeles or Vidal, California along the Colorado River.

It could be Alaska but Wyatt would have been much younger than the Gentlman shown in the picture.