Wyatt Earp’s First Gunfight Was in Orin, Wyoming

By Janelle Molony 

The Wild West history legend was only sixteen years old when his mettle was tested for the first time as an outrider for a covered wagon train. In 1864 Wyatt Earp’s family traveled from Iowa to California in the Pella Company, on the Overland-California Trail. Midday of July 12, they stopped for a rest in a bend of the North Platte River, within a mile and a half of Shawnee Creek, in present-day Orin. 

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Map shows of Wyatt Earp's frist guynfight location at Orrin, Wyo, with photo of Earpp
Trail map provided by National Parks Service, marked by author, 2025.

The company of 36 individuals and 9 wagons (at that time) divided their stock to both sides of the river, including the area where Bridger’s Ferry marker is found. Wyatt’s father, Sgt. Nicholas Earp, wrote a letter to a friend, saying they had only “bin in camp but alittle while,” and he and some other men sat down on the riverbank to rest their legs. Wyatt was on guard duty, as were his brother Morgan and four other men. 

In the 1930s, Wyatt relayed to biographer Stuart Lake that he was posted on a nearby bluff when he spotted incoming Northern Plains Indians, who he believed were “Sioux” or Lakota, riding single-file, towards the camp. Perhaps sensing what was to come, Wyatt raised his over-and-under combination rifle-shotgun, but the other guard with him warned against firing for fear that they would be easily outnumbered. Lake provided that the band of Indians were 12 strong.

Disclaimer from the author:

It should be known that after writing Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, Stuart Lake admitted many of the Earp quotations he included were fabricated. Though some few details can be backed up by triangulating data, many of Lake’s claims remain unsubstantiated, factually wrong or wildly implausible. Considering this, Wyoming and Wyatt Earp history fans are encouraged to read the corroborating eyewitness accounts in Nicholas Earp’s April 2, 1865 Letter to James Copley and The 1864 Diary of Mrs. Sarah Jane Rousseau. These accounts are harmonious and found trustworthy under expert scrutiny. 

Wyatt Allegedly Warns the Family

Lake states that Wyatt Earp fired a warning shot to alert those in camp of an incoming threat. He then charged his livestock down the bluff to chase the Indians from behind. His father turned and saw “a squad of men on horse back,” galloping towards him, startling all into action. One company member, Sarah Rousseau, kept a diary and mileage log for the journey and noted, “We had hardly got our horses out to eat when the alarm was given the Indians were on us.” 

Indians swept down past the camp towards their target: the grazing horses. Nicholas Earp wrote, “we all rushed to the waggons and got our guns,” and Rousseau confirmed that “every man was for his gun and revolver.” Earp claimed those in camp “met [the Indians] and began to shoot at them.”

Wyatt Earp closed in; charging his livestock “full tilt” over the river to where the fight ensued and women and children scrambled for safety. Once over, Lake added, “the herders turned to join the pursuit of the Indians.”

“Oh[,] what an exciting time,” Rousseau wrote, “the bullets flying in every direction.” Lake shared that Wyatt Earp fired on the invading party with complaint: his rifle did not have sufficient range, so he missed his target. Regardless, that event marked the first time Wyatt ever put another human in his weapon’s crosshair.

In the engagement, ten horses belonging to the emigrants became separated from group. Seeing the opportunity, the Indians guided them away into the “Black Hills,” as the area was once called. 

Through careful document analysis, mapping and site visits, this milestone event has been confirmed as part of the Platte River Raids (a large-scale horse-thieving operation that lasted three days). The Pella Company survived a second encounter on July 14. More on the event is found in the nonfiction, Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids (M Press, 2023).

Bibliography

  • Rousseau, Sarah. The 1864 Diary of Mrs. Sarah Jane Rousseau. Phoenix: M Press, 2023.
  • Earp, Nicholas. “Copy of a Handwritten Letter from Nicholas Earp to James Coplea, April 2, 1865.” Pella Community Memory Database, Pella Public Library [Identifier: 2019.1.62.11].
  • Lake, Stuart N., Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1931), 16-17.

For further research:

A complete wagon train roster can be found in Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids (Phoenix: M Press), 2023, 254-264.

The Platte River Raids were a three-day coordinated ambush on wagon trains from July 12-14, 1864 on both the Mormon/Oregon Trail and the Overland-California Trail between the at Deer Creek military garrison in present-day Glenrock, Wyoming and Fort Laramie. The tribes known to be involved include members of the Northern Cheyenne, Northern Arapaho and Lakota nations.

Janelle Molony can be reached at JanelleMolony.com/contact.