For anybody who has seen the iconic westerns like Tombstone, and Wyatt Earp, you’ve most likely imagined what life was actually like in the wild west, where law & order was handled by a pistol and a draw.
Wyatt Earp is easily one of the most recognizable and famous lawmen of all time, as he was notorious for putting away tons of bandits and troublemakers and cleaning up the streets, during a time when bandits had the upper hand in the late 1800s to early 1900s out west.
Needless to say, he was an All-American badass.
With that being said, I discovered this hidden gem of Earp’s nephew, Virgil Earp, joining “The $64,000 Question” gameshow back in 1958.
Born in 1879, he had vast memory of what life was like when his uncle was cleaning up the streets, who was also a prolific lawman out in Tombstone, Arizona back in the day, and he talked about what life was like way back then.
He explained that being a lawman back in his day was much more difficult than it was in 1958. Although he said people were a lot more honest and more cooperative, he explained that there were more duties a lawman had to take care of, holding the positions of Sheriff, deputy, jailer, and everything in between.
He also mentioned that he only got paid $75 a month, for his job, which is roughly equivalent to $2,645.63.
Virgil then competed on the gameshow, answering questions about U.S. History, and walked away with $3,200, which is equivalent to nearly $33,000 today.
Talk about a pretty cool moment in history.
Check it out:
