Wyatt Earp's Neighborhood

Wyatt Earp’s Neighborhood

By Alan & Claudia Heller

Photos: Alan Heller

As Rondy Explorers set out from Blythe on various trips, we hooked up with DE member Cooper and his dog and caravanned to the Blythe Intaglios making a stop to visit Wyatt Earp’s cottage. To see the pretty, modest blue cottage with a white picket fence in Vidal, California, one would never guess it was the home of the infamous tough lawman/gunslinger, Wyatt Earp. He led a tumultuous life with a long line of legal and questionable occupations but in the end, he and his wife Josie settled down in what was supposedly his only permanent residence (1925-1928). From his home he could work in his “Lucky Day” mine located nearby in the Whipple Mountains. Ironically, the little cottage was sold a few years back to Terry Ike Clanton, a direct descendent of the infamous Clantons which were Earp’s rivals.

We made a stop at what was the Post Office in Earp which is in Parker Valley near the California-Arizona border, not far from the cottage.  It was originally named Dennan, founded in 1910, and changed to Earp in 1920.   ~ Alan