The Real “Doc” Holliday
In the 1993 movie Tombstone, Doc Holliday (portrayed by actor Val Kilmer) is depicted as a good guy at heart, helping Wyatt Earp to keep order and law in the dangerous old west town of Tombstone, Arizona. As is the case with Earp, there is a mound of evidence that the real Doc Holliday wasn’t nearly so squeaky clean. Here is the truth behind the legend of the “slickest gunslinger in the west,” Doc Holliday.
Born John Henry Holliday on August 4, 1851 in Griffin, Georgia (today, a suburb of Atlanta), “Doc” was the second child born to his parents, Henry (“Major”) and Alice Jane Holliday, but his older sister passed away during childbirth. He would remain an only child. His father was a veteran of several wars, including the Cherokee Indian War and the Mexican-American war. When he returned in 1848 from the Mexican-American war, he brought with him an orphaned Mexican boy named Francisco Hidalgo. It is said when John Henry was a young child, Francisco taught him how to become “the quickest draw in the west.”
Growing up on a “Southern frontier” farm was tough living, with humid air and erratic weather. John’s family was Scottish-Irish, like many in the region, and he was raised Protestant. His mother taught him manners and etiquette, while his father regaled him with war stories and survival skills. John was but nine years old when the Civil War broke out and his father once again left for war, but not before moving his family even further south, to the Georgia-Florida border. John attended school and was a good student, though he was noted as being somewhat rebellious.
Quickly after his mother’s death in May of 1866 from consumption (a.k.a. tuberculosis, see: Why Tuberculosis was Called “Consumption”), Major remarried to a neighbor’s daughter (who was 23, eight years older than John). John’s relationship with his father became strained and he left home to attend the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1869, one of the best dental schools in the country. Seemingly, he did quite well at school and graduated with a license in 1872. He moved to St. Louis for a period of time, to join a friend’s dental practice, before moving back to Georgia.
Now, here begins the more interesting part of Holliday’s life. In 1872, in a story recounted in a Doc Holliday biography written by Gary Roberts, Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend, (but first conveyed in 1907 by noted writer Bat Masterson) Holliday first killed a man in Georgia during a racial dispute. Holliday and a few friends were at a watering hole when a group of African-American men joined them as well. Holliday did not approve and told them to leave. They didn’t. He produced a gun and shot one to three men (reports vary) to death. Now, a few historians think this story may not be entirely accurate due to discrepancies in the 1907 version, but it wouldn’t have been too out of character for Holliday given his preponderance towards violence.
Also around this time, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis just like his mother, who he watched die from the disease. With no effective cure, it was thought that a dry climate could at least alleviate the symptoms. Either because he was run out of town or due to his sickness, or maybe both, he moved to the dry air of Dallas, shortly thereafter in 1872.
He opened a dental practice in Dallas, but it wasn’t for long. According to True West Magazine, Doc’s constant coughing and illness kept patients away, so he had to learn how to make money another way – card games and gambling.
Refined, intelligent, and good at keeping a poker face, Doc excelled at Faro, where he became a dealer (or “banker”) at several saloons across Dallas. Faro was a game which pitted the banker against the other players. It was also a game that could be easily rigged. Doc was extremely good at Faro, or at least extremely good at cheating, earning himself a lot of money – and a lot of enemies.
Throughout the next few years, Doc was regularly arrested and fined for his gaming in Dallas. To avoid charges, he went on the run throughout the Southwest, dealing Faro at saloons all along the way. He got into more than one disagreement that required the use, or at least the threatening of, the skills he learned from Fransisco so many years back. He seems to have gotten into gunfights throughout Texas, Kansas, Wyoming, and New Mexico. He also is known to have sliced open a man’s stomach when the man refused to follow the Faro rules that Doc had “implemented.” At one point, it is thought that US Marshals and Texas Rangers were even after him.
In 1879, he had made enough money to open his own saloon in New Mexico. He spent his time dealing Faro and drinking heavily, until one night a former army scout put up a fuss when one of Holliday’s saloon girls (possibly a prostitute) told him that she wasn’t in love with him. The army scout went outside and began to fire shots into Holliday’s establishment. So, Doc went outside and killed the man. The following year, he found himself in Tombstone, Arizona where history was waiting for him.
Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday first became familiar, where else, but at a Faro gaming table. As the deputy of Dodge City, Earp was on the trail of well-known train robber Dave Rudabaugh and was venturing way out of his jurisdiction in pursuit, nearly 400 miles and into Fort Griffin, Texas. Historians believe Earp wasn’t doing this out of any sense of justice, but rather for the considerable reward money. Either way, he was directed to the Faro table of Doc Holliday, who had dealt with Rudabaugh. Normally, Holliday would never talk to a lawman, but upon hearing about the reward over a game of Faro, he spilled the beans that he had heard that Rudabaugh was hightailing it back to Kansas. Earp wired the information to a friend there and Rudabaugh was soon captured. It is not known if Earp shared the reward money with Holliday, nor who won that game of Faro.
Also, according to a story supposedly told by Earp (possibly just a legend, given Earp’s and his many biographers’ known propensity to make up such stories), Holliday once saved Earp’s life. In 1879, with Holiday paying a visit to Dodge City with his girlfriend “Big Nose Kate,” the noted cowboy Tabo Driskell pulled a gun on Earp and was about to shoot him when Holliday came up behind him and placed a gun at his temple. Driskell dropped his gun and from then on, Earp credited Holliday with saving his life.
Whether true or not, in 1881, Earp wrote a letter to Holliday asking him to join him in Tombstone, saying they could use a dentist in those parts. More likely, Earp probably just wanted his favorite Faro dealer by his side to help fleece the denizens of the then prosperous silver mining town. So, Doc Holliday moved to Tombstone and that was where his legend was made and why anybody still remembers who he was.
It seems Holliday’s participation in the showdown at the OK Corral (or rather in a vacant lot next to the OK Corral) against Ike Clanton and his men had more to do with his loyalty to Earp, and the fact that he rarely said no to a gunfight, than upholding the law. There is also some evidence that Clanton may have been spreading rumors about Holliday robbing a stagecoach and that his girlfriend, “Big Nose Kate,” was a prostitute. There is also a story that Clanton called Holliday and the Earps out for the fight over they having cheated Clanton in a Faro game. On the other hand, this all may have been said after the fact to give Holliday reason to be in the gunfight.
The violence only took thirty seconds, left three men dead, and several men injured. While no one knows for sure who fired first, it was Doc’s bullet that first rendered a fatal shot. It is even written in some accounts that Clanton was not armed. But finding the truth about what happened in that gunfight is about as difficult as finding Bigfoot.
In the end, Holliday, along with Earp, was put on trial for murder. He was exonerated, but several attempts were made on his life over the next few years. He eventually made his way to Colorado where he increasingly became dependent on alcohol and opium as his health deteriorated.
He died in 1887 at the young age of 37 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, from the same illness that claimed his mother – tuberculosis.
Wyatt Earp lived on and moved to Los Angeles in the early 20th century where his story got the Hollywood treatment, most prominently in the largely fictitious, but ever popular, “biography” Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshall. Always loyal to his friend, Earp perpetuated the myth that his card shark, gun fighter pal, Doc Holliday, was an old west hero. It seems, if we are taking real historical accounts and evidence into consideration, this is actually quite false. But, as with Earp’s Hollywoodized tale, it sure makes a great story.
If you liked this article, you might also enjoy our new popular podcast, The BrainFood Show (iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, Feed), as well as:
- Wyatt Earp – The Great American… Villain?
- Where the Term “Jackpot” Came From
- How the Game “Poker” Got Its Name
- The Invention of the Slot Machine
- Gun “Silencers” Don’t Make Them Anywhere Near Silent
- What Happened at the OK Corral? – Discovery Channel
- Wyatt Earp – The Great American… Villain? – Today I Found Out
- Decision of Judge Wells Spicer after the Preliminary Hearing in the Earp-Holliday Case – University of Missouri-Kansas City
- Doc Holliday – Wikipedia
- Wyatt Earp: Knight With A Six-Shooter – Crime Library
- Looking for Doc in Dallas – True West Magazine
- John Henry “Doc” Holliday – Legends of America
- Doc Holliday’s Racist Killing? – True West Magazine
- Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait By Karen Holliday Tanner
- Doc’s Story – Victoria Wilcox Books
- Doc Holiday Kills for First Time – History.com
- Interview with Virgil Earp – Arizona Daily Star
- Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend By Gary L. Roberts
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“Holliday and a few friends were at a watering hole when a group of African-American men joined them as well. Holliday did not approve and told me to leave. They didn’t.”
Wow. You’re lucky he didn’t kill you after he told you to leave!:
“one of Holliday’s saloon girls (possibly a prostitute) ….”
Ya think?
I just love stories of old. I am a history person and reading different storiesabout ttheold west fascinates me. Tell the true story of Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Cochise. I love Indian stories also when they are not fabricated,. Jesse James, Younger Bro’s, Clantons, Hatfield’s and McCoys. I just love it.
Noone will ever know the complete truth about the old west I don’t care who tells them or how much “proof” they have. Like all other things these stories can be fabricated and most likely are you just gotta decide what you want to believe. I know some of the pple are real but I am willing to bet some pple and stories are false
You are so right Andrew…that’s just what I was thinking.
Just like the Bible, you never really know.
The bible is the oldest of all but no one should ever have negative remarks toward it faith is what it’s about and how strong it is with you and all truth will be revealed
The bible is man made ,in order to control the people with fear it’s nothing more than organized superstition.
who`s control and what people?
Really, a collection of 66 books, written by 40 authors in different times all attesting to the CREATOR of the universe that offers salvation and redemption of sin and a personal relationship with HIM. Oh yeah, people and governments have tried to destroy since it was given to us, and yet the Bible endures and is relevant because its nature is supernatural from eternity to eternity and even speaks of the days we live in and what is in our future.
The Bible is a book of “fairy tales” Billy.
I stopped reading after the first few paragraphs. Don’t know where you got your info from. John Henry’s sister died when she was 6 months old, not during childbirth. John was with his uncle, Tom, for the swimming hole incident. John fired over the heads of the young men. No one was killed. There I stopped reading because obviously you don’t research properly before you tell a story. Maybe you should read Doc Holliday, A Family Portrait by Karen Holliday Tanner. She is his cousin by way of Robert Holliday. He was John’s first cousin and grew up with him. They had plans of opening a dental practice together. A very informative book.
What a load of crap! You give the impression that Ike Clanton was killed at the OK Corral…he wasn’t. He ran up to Wyatt crying that he wasn’t armed, and Wyatt told him “The fight has commenced, now get to fightin’ or get away”. This was recounted by witnesses. Ike was killed in 1887 by a private detective who was attempting to arrest him for rustling. There are also other dubious points in your account that I don’t have time to point out.
Great story – easy to read with a good flow to your writing. You did state on several occasions that what you wrote from other stories about Doc Holliday may not be true as there is much that is still not known about Doc and Wyatt Earp. Don’t listen to those below remarks. I’ve also heard that in documentaries about them – much is still unknown as fact.
My interest in Doc Holliday became renewed after watching the fantastic new series on the SYFY channel – “Wynonna Earp” based on the comic book of the same name. Will be renewed in 2017. If you are a Wyatt or Doc fan, you will seriously enjoy the program – a drama but filled with humorous one liners. Tim Rozon plays Doc and with the added bonus that he is eye candy, ladies!
While Holliday and Earp were by no means saints or heroes. I doubt they were as bad as you try to make them out to be. If you know anything at all about history, you cannot judge people from the 19th century by today’s standards. I could go on, but it is probably pointless, as you seem to have your mind already made up.
The watering hole situation is still being debated in regards to what actually may have happened. I’ve bought Holliday, Earp and Tombstone books and I have found Holliday pretty likable. He was loyal and intelligent and given his circumstances I think he came off fairly well as a man in the latter part of the 19th century.
This may be off topic, but, since Doc Holliday had TB, wouldn’t you expect those around him to have contracted it too?
Big Nose Kate probably but it’s hard to say about the others. About 90% of the infections are latent and the victims never show symptoms.
people were telling lies about Holliday during his life, Apparently nothing has changed 140 years on.
My birthday is the same date of the Gunfight at the OK Corral: Oct. 26. I was born on the 79TH anniversary, that’s why I usually look up a lot of stuff and movies about that incident.
where is Doc Grave
Going to Tombstone in June 2018
Your references except for Roberts are the worst ever. Sadly, what a poor showing.
Unfortunately, info. on much of the old west is purely speculative, but the stories are great.
The picture of doc on this website seems real enough. I like doc. Have a nice day.
I am a Holliday, related to Doc.
I came hear to see what others say about my family. It’s nice to see so many have an open mind for people at that time.
I’m afraid I’d get arrested if I openly talked about my life, but I’ve also had my share of fighting injustice. It literally courses through my veins when I see people taken advantage of or horrendously wronged.
Pull that shit in front of me and you and I will be talking.
Don’t know if it’s the blood or what, but I encourage all of you to stand up and act on what’s right around you.
Make the world a better place.
Good post. I posted some info that disputes this “story”. But something tells me it’s not gonna get approved.
Well, I believe I’ve seen it all now. This was one heck of a hack job, trying to degrade the life of Holliday and Earp. After about the tenth completely blantant false claim in this article, I just knew I needed to make a comment. Hmmm, maybe that’s why they do it.. I mean, I’m required to signup to make a comment, right..?
People, this article is a total farce. It’s as if the author is writing his own far reaching fiction about these characters. These facts are attainable through minimal research. The author definitely knows better. If he/she doesn’t, then they’re a perfect example of the human contribution to needless misinformation, whether it be politically motivated or for mundane click-bate. Again, people, this is a hack job story with purposeful damaging accusations/comments towards these historic figures.
I don’t have the time to disprove every false claim. So I’ll just focus on the easiest one that sticks out to me.
Doc was a good man with a rebellious nature. One of his best friends growing up WAS a black man. He met another good friend in dental school, to whom was implied was also a “black man.”
He disagreed with his father regarding the Civil War. He was torn between supporting States rights and disagreeing with the South’s obvious slavery issue. He was a purest.
Sure, he got in gunfights and killed men. However, in a sense, he was a good “bad guy”. He took issue with evil men and wrote about it.
Holliday became a legend because he espoused the true American spirit. He was a rebel, he didn’t obey the new world of control that America was currently undergoing. His legend lived on because people once understood that. His legend is becoming lost and manipulated, ie: by the likes of this dispicable political misinformed author.
At the end of the day, don’t take my word for it. Do your own research. Take things in with a filter. And get the true story. Good luck to you all.
The bible is a bunch of bronze age fairy storie that try to give reason to everythin in the real world. The Greeks created philosophy which does a better job. The problem with the bible is that the stories are all lifted from older none Jewish sources, for example the flood story appears in Gilgamesh which pre dates the bible, even in the new testament the virgin birth was copied almost word for word from the story of Mithras, who was born on the 25th December to a virgin and was said to be the savior of mankind, I could go on but those of you who claim to believe in the bible will just tell me what a bad person I am.
I am writing a book about Doc Holliday and have read 35 books on Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. This article is for the most part accurate. Doc was very intelligent and was awarded for his advanced dental inventions. He had a short Irish temper he was an alcoholic and a opium addict to function and dull the pain from his TB. He also may have had VD from Big Nose Kate who was a whore who loved money and her profession. Doc was a Republican an a anti slavery advocate having grown up with his best friend being black.He was taught to play poker and Faro by his black nanny who was not a slave. Doc was very loyal to his friends Morgan Wyatt and Virgil Earp and was friends with many of the Chinese people in Tombstone and in towns he lived in. Doc died in my hometown of Glenwood Springs and I have the Pocket pistol made by the Creacent Pistol Company in Prescott Arizona when he lives there for a few months. My father owned a sporting goods store in Glenwood and in 1956 he was given the 28 caliber 5 shot pistol which was given to Art Kendrick the Bell boy at the Hotel Glenwood.