The Tragic Truth Of Morgan Earp's Death

Morgan Earp, better known as "the Bill Paxton one from Tombstone" to most of us, was a lawman, a soldier, verified Old West bucket of American badassery, and dead ringer for Chris Hemsworth. Sure, Wyatt is remembered as the Earp family's gunfighting quarterback, thanks in large part to his late-in-life rebranding push and the (pretty fictional) biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshall, and Doc Holliday will always be cowboy Ice Man thanks to Val Kilmer, even if he was, in reality, kind of a bummer of a dude. Morgan, on the other hand, is mostly remembered as Earp who died with the biggest bullet hole in his body.

In reality, Morgan Seth Earp was a bonafide frontier man of mystery. A lot of his life is poorly documented, but the rumors and conjecture make him sound like a wild dude. He was rumored, for example, to have killed a man in Butte, Montana in an argument over which one of them would get a job as, ironically, a policeman.

If nothing else, Morgan seemed to be a devoted brother, sticking by his kin in situations that would have most of us saying "time to find a new family." It was that loyalty that would see him wearing a badge at the O.K. Corral on October 26th, 1881. Deputized by his brother, Morgan joined Wyatt, Doc Holliday, and Virgil Earp in an attempt to disarm cowboy Ike Clanton and his crew. The event culminated in the most infamous gunfight in Old West history, during which Cowboy gang members Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton were killed and Morgan was clipped in the back by a bullet. It was the boiling point of what could either be interpreted as an old fashioned white hat/black hat good-vs-bad rivalry or, more accurately, just a really nasty gang fight.

Five months later, Morgan was playing billiards at a parlor when a bullet fired from outside the building struck him in the back, rupturing major arteries and paralyzing him. When his brothers tried to get him on his feet, Morgan reportedly told them that he couldn't stand, before pragmatically pointing out "This is the last game of pool I'll ever play." He died less than an hour later.

Tragic loss of an Old West Hero? The inevitable result of violence begetting more violence? However you read the death of Morgan Earp, his passing brought about two definite results: it sparked Wyatt's infamous Vendetta Ride, and it proved, once and for all, that Harold Hill was right, and pool really does spell trouble.