Virgil Earp, O.K. Corral survivor, claimed 160 Arizona acres in 1898

Virgil Earp, the former Tombstone marshal who survived the 1881 O.K. Corral gunfight, took up homesteading 17 years later. In 1898, he claimed 160 acres near Prescott, Arizona, under federal law, and earned title to the land in 1900, the Times of India reports. His Union Army service during the Civil War allowed him to complete the homesteading requirement in just two years instead of five.

Earp had moved to Tombstone in 1879 with brothers Wyatt and Morgan, becoming town marshal. The October 26, 1881, shootout near the O.K. Corral left several men dead and Virgil wounded. Violence continued: Morgan Earp was killed in an ambush in March 1882, and Virgil lost the use of his right arm in the same attack. The Earps then left Tombstone. Virgil died in 1905, but his later years as a landowner marked a sharp turn from his frontier lawman days, according to the National Park Service.