Wyatt Earp's alaskan adventure

~historic photo gallery~

In partnership with Charlie Hoxsie, Wyatt Earp opened the Dexter - a second class Saloon.

In the summer of 1900, the sleepy fishing village of Nome, close to the Arctic Circle, remote even by Alaskan standards, became one of the most exciting places in the world. Gold had been discovered on the shores of the Bering Sea the previous summer. Josephine and Wyatt Earp were drawn to Nome as one more place to seek their fortune.

On his way to Nome, Wyatt Earp is said to have checked his weapon at the Red Dog Saloon in Juneau, Alaska and never claimed it.

Josephine’s niece Peggy Greenberg, who visited Nome in 1900, is shown in her plaid cape outside the Cape Nome newsstand.

After the “rush of the season to Cape Nome” in 1900, the “beach between Nome and Cripple rivers, a distance of about 20 miles, was soon crowded with two and three tiers of tents; rockers, sluices and all manner of gold-saving machines were set up as long as there was room for them, regardless of the extent or value of available sands to work,” reported The Engineering and Mining Journal on December 29, 1900.

– Courtesy Carrie M. McLain Museum collection, Nome, Alaska –

Flooding and destruction in the streets of Nome from the storm of 1900

Panning for gold on Nome Beach

Josephine Marcus Earp from the Alaska Jewish Museum in Anchorage

By 1900, the streets of Nome were filled with throngs of people. In the photo above, you can see the Dexter saloon that Wyatt Earp owned along with Charlie Hoxsie.

– Courtesy Carrie M. McLain Museum collection, Nome, Alaska –

Pictured in Nome, Alaska, Wyatt Earp (center) is shown with Norwegian frontiersman Ed Englestadt (at left) and former Tombstone Epitaph editor John Clum (at right) who was in Nome to run the postal service.

– True West Archives –