Historical Figures
The Holliday Family
Alice Jane Holliday and son John Henry, before his first birthday.
Henry Burroughs Holliday, father of John Henry Holliday; date unknown.
John Stiles Holliday, M.D., uncle of John Henry Holliday, the surgeon who corrected the infant’s cleft palate and cleft lip in October of 1851. Dr. J.S. Holliday was assisted by Dr. Crawford Long, who had begun developing ether as an anesthetic just three years earlier. There is a hospital in Atlanta GA that bears Crawford Long’s name today.
Cousins Robert Alexander Holliday and John Henry Holliday, ages 2 and 1, ca. 1852. The boys were very close throughout childhood; as young men, they had planned to open a joint dental practice in Atlanta. John Henry went West for his health in 1872; Robert never took his cousin’s name off the office building’s sign.
Cousin Robert Alexander Holliday, D.D.S., age 30. Compare this to the photo of JHH at the same age, and you can see what would have been a normal weight for Doc Holliday.
Doc ca. 1881
Cousin Martha Anne Holliday, ca. 1865. Margaret Mitchell based the character Melanie Wilkes on Martha Anne. “She was a tiny, frailly built girl… as simple as earth, as good as bread, as transparent as spring water. But for all her plainness of feature and smallness of stature, there was a sedate dignity … that was oddly touching…”
Sophie Walton in maturity, ca. 1885, born into slavery. Fostered by Dr. and Mrs. John Stiles Holliday during the civil war, Sophie Walton remained with members of the Holliday family all her life. She taught John Henry Holliday to play cards.
Kate Harony (seated) and her sister Wilhelmina, ca. 1867. Orphaned and in foster care, Kate ran away that year and made a living as a prostitute.
Kate Harony at 40, a few years after the death of John Henry Holliday. She and Doc Holliday were together off and on during the last nine years of his life, and she considered herself to have been his common law wife.
John Henry Holliday, D.D.S.
The only adult authenticated by the Holliday family shows John Henry at 20, taken for his graduation from dental school.
Though often said to be Doc, this man is not John Henry Holliday. At 20, JHH’s hairline had already receded beyond those of the man above and his eyebrows were sharply arched, a trait that doesn’t change with age.
Another popular photo said to be Doc, this man has been identified as John Escapule, a mining engineer who lived in Tombstone in the 1880s.
Stephen Keith, in character as Doc Holliday, in Tombstone, AZ
Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery where where John Henry Holliday studied dentistry in 1870-71. The college was founded in 1863 and was considered the best in the country when JHH studied there.
Dentistry ad, Dodge City Times, June 8, 1878. This was the last formal dental practice JHH established, although he did occasional emergency dental work for friends and acquaintances even after his health made such work difficult.
Buffalo bone toothbrushes, ca. 1872.
Doc Holliday’s “pocket dental office,” 1878. Note the decorative gold work he did for the leather cover.
The Earp Family
Virginia Cookesy Earp and Nicholas Earp, date unknown.
Morgan Earp in his twenties.
Morgan Earp, ca. 1881.
Louise Houston, Morgan’s common law wife.
Wyatt Earp at 22, ca. 1870, possible a photo taken for his wedding.
Wyatt in his late twenties, a Dodge City policeman in the late 1870s.
Wyatt, mid-thirties, a photo taken in Tombstone.
Mattie Blaylock, date unknown. There is no record of her marriage to Wyatt Earp, but she is known to have lived with him as his wife until 1881.
Mattie Blaylock Earp, ca. 1885, shortly before her death from an overdose of laudanum.
James Earp as a young man, date unknown, probably post-war.
James Earp in maturity, date unknown.
Bessie Earp (Mrs. James Earp), date unknown.
Wyatt and Josephine Earp c. 1906
The Wright Family
Isabelle Wright, the Belle of Dodge.
Robert C. “Bob” Wright, the Merchant Prince of Dodge City, from the excellent biography of that name by C. Robert Haywood, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1998.
Alice Wright, Bob’s wife.
Wright & Beverley general outfitting store, Dodge City, Kansas. Bob had several partners over the years but always bought them out.
Ad for Bob Wright’s store in Dodge.
Dodge City Figures and Scenes
George Hoover, proprietor of the Hoover liquor and cigar store, Dodge City. Also served as mayor of the city and led the local Temperance movement.
Hoover Wedding Photo. Note that George’s wife Margaret appears to be standing on a box, and she is still so tiny next to him, she appears to be a bird perching on his shoulder.
Bat Masterson, sheriff of Ford County, Kansas in 1878, already putting on weight at 25 but very dapper.
Larry Deger, city marshal of Dodge City, Kansas. Said to weigh in well over 300 pounds in 1878.
Eddie Foy, “that little Irish clown fella,” as Wyatt calls him in Doc.
Eddie Foy, out of costume, the king of vaudeville at the turn of the century.
Eddie Foy and the Seven Little Foys in their production “Slumwhere in New York,” 1920. Eddie was arrested in Chicago that year for violations of child labor laws.
Comic Eddie Foy, in the 1870s, when he began touring the cow towns of the West.
Chalkley “Chalkie” Beeson, owner of the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, in 1878.
Bat Masterson, an older and heavier New York sportwriter, in the 1910s.
“Dog” Kelly and friend, ca. 1878. Note the dog at his feet, one of the many hounds he inherited from George Armstrong Custer.
Dodge City Drug Store, Dr. Tom McCarty, proprietor. Dr. McCarty was a colleague, friend and personal physician to Dr. John Henry Holliday in 1878.
Beeson’s Dodge City Cowboy Band, recruited and outfitted in 1878 by Chalkie Beeson. They played all over the state of Kansas in the 1880s.
Bison Skulls, mid-1870s.
Hoover wholesale liquors and cigars, Dodge City.
Barber shop, restored, Dodge City.
Union Church
Long Branch Restored
Fort Dodge, ca. 1870.
Dodge House Hotel, Front Street, “Deacon” Cox, proprietor. Dr. John Henry Holliday’s office was located in #24, Dodge House, during his time in Dodge City.
Dodge City, Front Street, late 1870s.