10. Earp and Masterson were involved in the shooting of a drunken cowboy
In July 1878, a drunken cowboy named George Hoyt shot up the street outside of the Comique Theater, including some shots into the theater which disrupted a performance. Hoyt was accompanied by several others, and they galloped out of the city, with Earp, Masterson (a town policeman at the time) and a posse in pursuit. Later in the morning Earp and Masterson ran down Hoyt just south of town near the Arkansas River, and according to his own account, Earp shot and killed the cowboy. Dodge City newspaper accounts of the incident report that Hoyt died several weeks later of gangrene, disputing Earp’s retelling to a biographer.
