The Earps Invade Southern California: Bootlegging Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and the Old Soldiers' Home

by Donald Chaput, David de Haas

Overview

Most readers of the Wild West know Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, and Morgan Earp for the famous shootout on the streets of Tombstone, Arizona. But few know the later years of the close-knit Earp family, which revolved around patriarch Nicholas Earp, and their last push at a major monetary coup in Los Angeles.

By 1900 a newly established Old Soldiers’ Home was in place at Sawtelle (between Santa Monica and Los Angeles), with thousands of veterans earning monthly pensions, but in an environment where alcohol was prohibited. Enter the Earps and their “blind pig” (illicit alcohol sales) scheme. Two of the Earps, Nicholas and son Newton, were enrolled in the Soldiers’ Home, and Newton’s far more famous half-brothers Wyatt and Virgil showed up from time to time, but the star of the operation was older brother James.

Booze would flow, the pension money would be “dispersed about,” and jails were sometimes filled, as the Earps and several other men on the make competed for the veterans’ money. We are also reintroduced to Old West figures such as “Gunfighter Surgeon” Dr. George Goodfellow, “Silver Tongued Orator” Thomas Fitch, millionaire George Hearst, detective J.V. Brighton, Lucky Baldwin, and many other well-known westerners who touched the lives of the Earps.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781574418095
Publisher:	University of North Texas Press
Publication date:	07/21/2020
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

DON CHAPUT is the author of Virgil Earp: Western Peace Officer; The Earp Papers: In a Brother's Image; and co-author of Cochise County Stalwarts: A Who's Who of the Territorial Years. He lives in Pasadena, California. DAVID D. DE HAAS, MD currently practices emergency medicine in Orange County, California. He has published many medical and Wild West-related articles. He resides in San Juan Capistrano, California.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Preface David D. de Haas xiii

Prologue xvi

Acknowledgments xvii

Chapter 1 The Wandering Earp Band of Brothers 1

Chapter 2 The Birth of Santa Monica and the Old Soldiers' Home 7

Chapter 3 The Birth of Soldiers' City 18

Chapter 4 Malibu Attacks! The Earp Scheme 25

Chapter 5 Almost Paradise 37

Chapter 6 The Den of Evil 52

Chapter 7 Sawtelle; a New City 60

Chapter 8 The Earps Cometh 67

Chapter 9 Enter V.W. Earp; Virgil Joins the Revelry 80

Chapter 10 The City of Angels 87

Chapter 11 Exit Virgil Earp; Goldfield Beckons 95

Chapter 12 Fellow Sophisticates from the Wild West 99

Chapter 13 The Earps Lose the Battle of Sawtelle 106

Chapter 14 King of the Blind Pigs and the Sawtelle Social Club 112

Chapter 15 The Evolution of Sawtelle 118

Chapter 16 Santa Monica Accepts its Destiny: Tombstone/Wild West Connections 123

Chapter 17 The Earps Retreat 137

Chapter 18 In Perspective: A Family on the Move 140

Epilogue 143

Appendix I Some of the Other Soldiers 151

Appendix II The Sawtelle Battle Earp Reserve Troops 177

Endnotes 191

Bibliography 217

Index 229

Editorial Reviews

This is a significant contribution—a previously unexplored chapter of the Earp story. Chaput and de Haas reveal the trouble the Earps had walking the line between law, order, and respectability on the one hand, and the vices on the other. This is a case study of the moral debate that raged at the turn of the twentieth century over gambling and liquor—a time when men like the Earps were asked to choose between the codes they had lived by and organized demands for social reform.”—Gary L. Roberts, author of Doc Holliday and co-editor of A Wyatt Earp Anthology
 
“There is no other work dealing with the Sawtelle period of the Earps’ lives. In essence this work is all new. I am especially pleased to see that in this work James C. Earp gets attention, as in most works his presence is hardly noted.”—Chuck Parsons, author of Captain John R. Hughes and The Sutton-Taylor Feud
 
“The late historian and Wyatt Earp–biographer Lee A. Silva would have been proud of this successful effort by two of his old pals, Messieurs Don Chaput and David D. de Haas, to tell not only a hidden chapter in the Earp legend but also the stories of two fascinating communities—Sawtelle (which was annexed to Los Angeles in 1917) and Santa Monica—and the tale of the early temperance movement in the LA area.”—Gregory Lalire, editor of Wild West Magazine since 1995 and author
 
“This is a needed contribution to Earpiana and to the lore of the last West; authors Chaput and de Haas have hit a home run with this book.”—Bill O'Neal, State Historian of Texas, 2012-2018, and author of more than forty books

"Just finished reading this excellent book a few days ago. David and Don, this previously little known and acknowledged period in the lives of the Earps is a true gem. Congratulations!"—Nick Cataldo, Earp historian
 

"Authors Chaput and de Haas have mined an entire new Earp topic. . . . [I]n the few years the brothers and their father lived at Sawtelle the excitement of illegal activity was exhilarating. The authors have provided a serious yet sometimes humorous account of their search for the last bonanza."—Tombstone Epitaph

"What makes The Earps Invade Southern California one of the decade’s most important volumes on the Earps is Chaput and De Haas’s effort as historians to place the Earp family members within a very fluid, interconnected community of bonanza-seekers and Southwestern entrepreneurs, all of whom crossed paths at some point in Tombstone, the Arizona Territory, Los Angeles and Southern California."—True West

"What emerges from this book, however, is the essence of what the Earp brothers had always been. They were primarily 'sporting men,' as their type was described at the time, looking to get rich from any combination of drink, gambling, property, mining claims, and prostitution.It just so happened that some of them worked as lawmen some of the time to further their wider goals."—English Westerners Society Magazine

"The early 20th Century is a relatively unmined area in Earpiana. Here we learn about James Earp and his illegal liquor business, conveniently located a stone's throw from the soldiers' home where booze is prohibited. . . . [B]rothers Wyatt and Virgil appeared periodically to help grab up some of the military penshioners' money."—Western Writers of America Roundup Magazine

"The Earps Invade Southern California breaks new ground in the Earp story—and is fun to read to boot."—Wild West History Association Journal

"The Earps Invade Southern California fills a gap in the Earp saga and will fascinate anyone interested in the transitional time when Los Angeles and neighboring cities were striving to define themselves."—Wild West

"This is a delightful tale of an era easily overlooked. Join the celebrities, politicians and families from all over the U.S. coming to visit the old gentlemen and the fabulous Old Soldiers' Home near Santa Monica. . . . Maybe you just might meet the Earps and their gun-toting buddies there. Watch your wallets."—Denver Westerners Roundup

"The name recognition of the Earps, especially Wyatt, makes this book interesting to both the public and academic scholars. The book was pleasant to read because of the way it tackled the myth of Wyatt and the Earp family, portraying them in a more realistic, truthful manner, pointing out their self-serving ambitions as saloon operators, bootleggers, and gambling cheats rather than lawmen."—Chronicles of Oklahoma

"The authors have turned up fresh information on the famous Earp family, the new town of Sawtelle, and the nearby Soldiers’ Home. Their story is invitingly written, spiced with nearly eighty illustrations, and based on strong research in Earp sources."—Western Historical Quarterly

From the Publisher