Lawman Turned Capitalist

When you come across a historical document that relates some previously unknown exploits of Wyatt Earp during his years living in San Diego, you take notice. Such was the case with my discovery of the manuscript for The Deadly Stingaree, which will be published in November 2025.

Earp is one of the most famous and mythologized lawmen in American history. But by the time he arrived in San Diego in the late 1880s, he’d hung up his badge and was pursuing less dangerous and more lucrative occupations. San Diego was growing at a phenomenal rate and a rampant business in land speculation was underway. Earp purchased and owned at least a dozen properties in the city including stables, office buildings, gambling halls and saloons. He listed his occupation as “Capitalist” in the local directory.

The author of The Deadly Stingaree is Johnathan Cong, a fourteen-year-old Chinese orphan who, with a bit of luck and a entrepreneurial savvy, makes friends with the former lawman. Earp admires the young man’s ambition and engages him to provide laundry services for the bordello upstairs from Earp’s gambling hall. There’s more to the story as Earp teams up with the young Cong and some other historical San Diegans to investigate a potential plot against President Benjamin Harrison during the president’s visit to San Diego in April 1891.

Fact or fiction? It’s hard to say. Earp would have been 43 years old in 1891. The real estate boom had turned into a bust. Earp lost money and he and his wife Josie began looking for opportunities elsewhere. There are reasons to doubt his part in this story, but there is enough historical evidence to believe it as well.

The Deadly Stingaree also describes a boxing match held in the bullring in Tijuana, Mexico, in which Earp serves as the referee. There is some historical context for this as well. Earp refereed at least 30 boxing matches during his life, the most famous of which was Fitzsimmons vs. Sharkey in San Francisco in 1896. Earp awarded the victory to Sharkey on a technicality, leading many in the crowd to believe the match was fixed. The cartoon below ran in newspapers later that week.

I’ll have more to say about The Deadly Stingaree and its historic veracity in the coming weeks, but you may have to read it yourself to decide.