Doc Holliday

John Henry "Doc" Holliday was a gambler, gunman, and loyal friend to Wyatt Earp. Born in Georgia in 1851, he is believed to have graduated from a dental college in Pennsylvania or Maryland around 1872 and practiced dentistry briefly in Atlanta and Griffin, Georgia. In the early 1870's he developed a chronic cough and other symptoms of pulmonary tuberculosis, the disease that had killed his mother, and went west to a drier climate in 1873. He practiced dentistry in Dallas, Texas, took up gambling, and played poker and faro. Gambling and drinking led to a number of gunfights, and after being suspected of stagecoach and train robbery and after killing a bartender in Las Vegas, he moved to Tombstone and joined Wyatt Earp. A story holds that he had once saved Earp's life in Dodge City by rescuing him in a fight with cowboys. In Tombstone he again practiced dentistry, gambled, and possibly took part in stagecoach robberies while Earp served as deputy marshal. By then, Holliday had been married to "Big Nose" Kate Elder, who signed a statement against him about a stage robbery that led to his arrest. Out on bail, he took part in the O.K. Corral Gunfight on October 26, 1881. He later accompanied the Earps from Tombstone to Colorado and was arrested in Denver, where Bat Masterson, probably at Wyatt Earp's request, intervened with the governor and secured his release. After a few more killings and arrests, Holliday returned to Glendwood Springs, Colorado, where he died of his disease at age 36.

Michigan · United States