The Earp Vendetta Ride was a pivotal extrajudicial pursuit in the American West that culminated in four outlaw deaths and Wyatt Earp's permanent departure from Arizona Territory.
Key Facts
- Duration
- March 20 – April 15, 1882
- Suspects killed by Earp posse
- 4
- Operating territory
- Southeast Cochise County, Arizona Territory
- Sheriff's posse size
- Approximately 20+ Cowboys and ranchers
- First suspect killed
- Frank Stilwell, March 20, 1882
- Final suspect killed
- Curly Bill Brocius, around April 15, 1882
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
In retaliation for three Cowboy deaths at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881, outlaw Cowboys ambushed Virgil Earp, permanently maiming him, and later murdered Morgan Earp in March 1882. Legal proceedings against the identified suspects collapsed due to technicalities and alibi support from the Cowboy gang, leaving Wyatt Earp to pursue justice outside the courts.
From March 20 to April 15, 1882, Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp led a small federal posse through southeast Cochise County, Arizona Territory, hunting the Cowboys believed responsible for the attacks on his brothers. The posse killed four men, including Frank Stilwell in Tucson and Curly Bill Brocius near the end of the ride, while evading a rival sheriff's posse of roughly twenty men led by Johnny Behan.
Following the vendetta ride, Wyatt Earp and his associates fled Arizona Territory into New Mexico to escape the Tucson arrest warrants issued against them. Earp never returned to Arizona Territory as a lawman, ending his involvement in the Cochise County conflicts. The episode became one of the most documented episodes of frontier justice in Old West history.