Not Quite!!

At first glance, it looked like a remarkable discovery—a photograph supposedly showing Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday seated at a faro table inside Tombstone’s Oriental Saloon.

That excitement disappeared as soon as the photograph was examined more closely.

There was virtually no chance the men in the photograph were Earp and Holliday.

The image and its misleading caption were found on Pinterest, where it had been identified as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday gambling in Tombstone. It is a good example of how easily an incorrect identification can spread across the internet. Once a name is attached to an old photograph, the caption is often repeated without anyone checking the original source.

In this case, the original information tells a very different story.

The Wrong Saloon—and the Wrong Town

The first problem is the location.

The photograph shows a faro game at the Orient Saloon in Bisbee, Arizona.

The famous establishment associated with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday was the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone.

Orient and Oriental may sound similar, but they were different establishments in different Arizona mining towns.

The Date Doesn’t Work Either

The photograph dates from approximately 1900, not 1881 as claimed in the misleading caption.

That alone eliminates Doc Holliday.

John Henry “Doc” Holliday died in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on November 8, 1887—more than a decade before this photograph was taken.

Wyatt Earp had also left Arizona years before the photograph was made.

The date, location, and history simply do not support the claim.

Following the Photograph Back to Its Source

The Tarnished West Team located the photograph through the U.S. Archives site on November 26, 2016. The accompanying information identified the setting and approximate date, making the problems with the internet version readily apparent.

Unfortunately, the false identification did not stop with a single Pinterest post. Other websites and individuals repeated the claim, demonstrating how quickly a mistaken caption can become accepted as “history” when the original source is not checked.

There is another piece of evidence much closer to where the photograph was actually taken.

During a visit to the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum, the Tarnished West Team photographed another display of the image. The museum’s identification made no reference to Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday.

And there is no reason it should have.

The photograph is interesting on its own. It provides a glimpse of gambling and saloon life in turn-of-the-century Bisbee.

It doesn’t need Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday added to the picture to make it worth seeing.

That is the difference between the Old West as it was—and the Old West the internet and Hollywood sometimes creates.