When you think of Wyatt Earp, chances are you probably think of either Dodge City, Kansas,
or Tombstone, Arizona.
But Nome, Alaska? That sounds weird, right?
Well, it is a little weird, but the truth is that Wyatt Earp actually spent some time
in Alaska during the gold rushes of the 1890's - and while he was there, he became friends
with Jack London, who would go on to become one of America's most famous authors.
So how did this happen?
Well, in the late 1890s there was money to be made from the gold rushes in the Yukon
and Alaska, and Wyatt, like many people in the Old West, was willing to chase it. Though
he's most famous as a lawman, the truth is that he spent most of his life as a bartender
and gambler.
So when the Nome Gold Rush began in 1899, Earp and his common-law wife, Josephine "Sadie"
Marcus, made the trip north from California to Alaska. But while thousands of other hopefuls
were rushing to Alaska to try and get rich quick off of gold mining, Earp and Marcus
were a lot wilier, because they knew a much easier way to get that gold rush money: they
took it from the miners after all the hard work was already done. Those miners, after
all, needed food, shelter, and companionship — and the lucky ones who did strike it rich
were looking for places to spend their sudden windfall.
Instead of prospecting for gold, then, Earp and Marcus opened the Dexter Saloon in Nome.
According to A Wyatt Earp Anthology, the Dexter Saloon quickly became the centerpiece of Nome
nightlife, where miners would go to gamble away their fortunes.
It was there that Earp met a young prospector by the name of Jack London.
According to Smithsonian, London was 21 when he set out from San Francisco for the northern
gold fields. The work itself was certainly brutal, but getting there was no picnic, either.
It's estimated that 100,000 men set out for the Klondike, but less than a third of them
were able to power through alive. Canadian authorities required each man to bring a year's
worth of food with him — about 1,000 pounds — in addition to mining equipment, which
doubled the weight.
London didn't get rich in Alaska. But he eventually got rich writing about Alaska, as his experiences
during the Gold Rush inspired him to write seminal works such as the short story "To
Build a Fire," and his classic novel The Call of the Wild, which drew on his experiences
in the frozen North.
Eventually, of course, Earp and London both left Alaska and returned to the continental
U.S., Earp considerably more wealthy than London. But it wasn't the last time they would
get together.
Earp ended up settling in the Los Angeles area and soon became friendly with a number
of people in the burgeoning film industry. In 1916, London — who by then was considered
one of America's greatest living authors — visited Earp in L.A. and the two decided to track
down film director Raoul Walsh so they could hear first hand about his experiences on the
border with Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution a couple of years earlier.
What resulted is one of the strangest Hollywood legends of them all.
According to True West Magazine, after a long talk, London, Earp, and Walsh ended up going
out to dinner — where they ran into the highest paid entertainer in the world, silent
film genius Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin was reportedly awestruck by meeting Earp and London. He said
that he was nearly inspired to head to Alaska to search for gold after reading London's
works, and he also recognized Earp, saying,
"You're the bloke from Arizona, aren't you? Tamed the baddies, huh?"
The meeting, which possibly inspired Chaplin to make his classic 1925 film The Gold Rush,
has to be one of the weirdest stories ever told. Sadly, London never really had a chance
to tell it, as he died later that year at just 40 years old. But in life, he gave the
world some of its greatest stories — including his unlikely friendship with old West legend
Wyatt Earp.
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