Wyatt On 66 & Redneck Detective Issues

 January 7 2026

   Here's a sneak peek at a feature we are working on even as you read this.

Wyatt On 66

   When I was nine-years-old my mother took me along to visit an old woman who lived on Beale Street in downtown Kingman. I remember her ancient furniture and the loud, ticking, grandfather clock and being bored stiff by the talk about oldtimers in Mohave County. At about the ten-hour-mark (or, was it merely thirty minutes?) this elderly woman (her first name was Emily, but I have forgotten her surname) mentioned the name Wyatt Earp and I came crashing out of a daydream because Hugh O'Brian as the legendary lawman was my favorite show on TV (The Life & Legend of Wyatt Earp, on ABC, 1955). "Excuse me, ma'am," I managed to blurt out, "did you say Wyatt Earp?" She laughed and went on with her story about Wyatt's wife (Sadie Marcus!) coming to Kingman in the early forties trying to track down several mining claims her husband had made during the last years of his life.

   Wow! Turns out Wyatt had a mining claim, or two, across the river from Parker, Arizona and he spent some 22 winters in that area (he spent only 22 months in Tombstone!). According to historian John Gilchriese, there is evidence Earp travelled all over Mohave County seeking mining opportunities, plus card games, in most of the camps, including Oatman, Goldroad, Chloride, Mineral Park and White Hills.

   Since the legendary gunfighter was there in the twenties it's very likely that he traveled on the fledgling new highway, Route 66, which angled from my hometown of Kingman down to Needles on the Colorado, via Goldroad and Oatman, a stone's throw from where the photo of Wyatt was taken staring across the river into Arizona.

Wyatt on the banks of the Colorado, 1925

(I think it's safe to say the Kansas Lawdog got his kicks on Route 66)

And, here is the original Route 66 alignment going thru Goldroad and Oatman. 

Wyatt Earp prospected through all this area.

  When I think of old Route 66 this is what I see in my mind's eye. Patchy pavement, barren cuts, but with a hidden oasis every now and then. Bob Peart had this hidden Texaco near Valentine to the east of Kingman. And I went to school with his daugher, Trudy.

Redneck Detective Issues

   There are two reasons redneck homicides are so hard to solve:

• The DNA all matches

• There's very little dental evidence

   This is also close to home.

Daily Whip Out: "Down On The Big Sandy"

"The world doesn't make sense, so why would I paint pictures that do?"

—Pablo Picasso