Wyatt Earp's Grave

Unlike many of his contemporaries the famous lawman, gambler, and all-around Western icon Wyatt Earp is not buried in a rustic plot in the desert, but is instead interred in a peaceful Jewish cemetery along with his wife. 

Despite his enduring legend, during all his years of law enforcement and gunfights Wyatt Earp was never so much as grazed by a single bullet. In fact Earp spent his final years working mining claims in the Mojave Desert in order to finance a comfortable life for himself and his wife in Los Angeles.

With his more violent years behind him, Earp died peacefully at the age of 81 with his wife Josie Marcus at his side. Josie was so grief stricken that it is said she could not even attend the funeral. After a teary Los Angeles funeral service with such associates as W.J. Hunsacker, Earp’s attorney from the Tombstone days, and early Hollywood western stars Tom Mix and William S. Hart as pallbearers, Earp was cremated.

Since he had agreed to be buried in Josie’s family plot despite not being Jewish himself, Earp’s ashes were taken to Colma, California and interred in the Jewish section of the Hills of Eternity Cemetery. When his wife Josie finally passed, she too was cremated and buried in the plot, assuring that the husband she so adored would never be alone again. A surprisingly touching end for such a complicated and rugged figure as Wyatt Earp.