The town, originally named Drennan in 1910, was renamed Earp in 1929.[1] It was named for famed
Old West lawman
Wyatt Earp who with his common-law wife,
Josephine Sarah Marcus, lived part-time in the area beginning in 1906. Earp staked more than 100 copper and gold mining claims[2] near the base of the
Whipple Mountains.[3]: 83
They bought a small cottage in nearby
Vidal and lived there during the fall, winter and spring months of 1925 – 1928, while he worked his "Happy Days" mines in the Whipple Mountains a few miles north. It was the only permanent residence they owned the entire time they were married.[4] They spent the winters of his last years working the claims but lived in
Los Angeles during the summers, where Wyatt died on January 13, 1929.
Though the town was never incorporated, the post office near Earp's mining claims at the eastern terminus of
Highway 62 near
Parker, AZ was renamed "Wyatt Earp, California" after Earp's death in 1930 with a
ZIP code of 92242. For amusement only there is a tiny cemetery showing the fake grave of Wyatt Earp (his actual grave is in the Hills of Eternity Cemetery in
Colma, just south of
San Francisco).
The post office is more than 220 miles (350 km) from the county seat in
San Bernardino, California; further than any other in the county. The entire region on the California side falls under
area code 760.
Unofficial alternate names of the area are listed as Big River, Drenna and Drennan.
Since Earp is an unincorporated community of San Bernardino County, County CEO Leonard X. Hernandez would be considered the Chief Administrator of Earp.
Images of Earp
These are images of the area where the Earp Post Office is located. Included is the symbolic cemetery dedicated to Wyatt Earp.
Earp
Earp Post Office Marker
Earp Post Office and symbolic cemetery
The Wyatt Earp symbolic grave
Abandoned Railroad Car in Earp
Top portion of the old Water Tower in Earp
References
^David W. Kean, Wide Places in the California Roads: The encyclopedia of California's small towns and the roads that lead to them (Volume 1 of 4: Southern California Counties), p. 59
Earp Post Office and symbolic cemetery
The Wyatt Earp symbolic grave
Abandoned Railroad Car in Earp
Top portion of the old Water Tower in Earp
