Wyatt Earp House, Fremont Street, Tombstone, Arizona
I got really lucky with today's house. I was moseying around its neighborhood after deciding to write about a place in Tombstone that was shown on the Old House Dreams site. I struck gold, because right behind that house...
is this one, the Wyatt Earp House. It was on the market and just sold 2 days ago.
The Tombstone consensus is this was his house, even though there is some evidence to suggest that it was actually catty-corner from this site. It is true that the Earp brothers owned the land, however, which includes the other house I'm going to feature, too.
There are three homes included in what's known as the Wyatt Earp House and Gallery. The one labeled with Wyatt's name has one bedroom, one bath, and a kitchenette. Some of the original siding and floors and the adobe brick have been restored to their 1880's appearance.
The house/museum has been nicely furnished with antiques, well, except for the kitchen appliances and the double washers and dryers in the laundry nook. Those Earp brothers must have had a lot of dirty clothes.
Another house on the lot, the Fremont House, has two bedrooms and two baths.
The third building is called the Carriage House, and it's essentially a studio apartment:
All together, the properties equal 2,188 square feet. The realtor suggests using them as vacation rentals or using one as a "classy boutique storefront." The rental idea is probably a winner, since the museum/gallery route has been a little less profitable.
The properties recently sold, but it's not too late for you to jump on the Earp Airbnb bandwagon. The house right behind them on Safford Street is still on the market.
It's very similar to the Earp house and also built around 1880 (although the real estate default date is 1900). It has 1,963 square feet.
If it were mine, I found the perfect inspiration for a makeover, down to the Earp brothers' photos!
Speaking of obsessed, before I knew about the Earp connection, I made it a more muted mine...
...and then found out the designer had done the same thing:
{source}
But let's finish the tour. There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Looking for historical photos, I found an 1881 map of the Tombstone mining claims.
{source}
Both the Earp house and the Safford Street house are in the Earp's Mountain Maid Mine claim. The other claims had some great names, like Little Tom, Sweet Nut, New Years Gift, and Ready Relief.
{source = Mr. If It Were Mine. He loves cool old maps.}
The houses might be depicted at the bottom of our cool old map, because they're four blocks from the1881 Sacred Heart Catholic Church, which may be the church drawn on the far right:
A quick history brush-up: Virgil Earp was Tombstone's town marshal. In 1881, he and brothers Wyatt and Morgan, along with Doc Holliday, were pursuing a cowboy gang that had robbed a stagecoach. Things escalated and became the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Most of the bad guys died, and some good guys were wounded. Wyatt was uninjured. He died in Los Angeles in 1929. If I find out that my property has some connection to him, I'm gonna flip my lid.
The Old House Dreams listing for the Safford Street house is here. If you hurry, you can have it ready for Tombstone's annual Wyatt Earp Days -- held this year on May 28th and 29th. The Earp House listing is here.
