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On Oct.18, 1957, two Peninsula teens out on an evening joyride in San Mateo County crashed straight into a piece of Wild West history. Their car, they told police, struck something as they were driving along Crystal Springs Road. When they climbed out to inspect the damage, they discovered a massive granite slab engraved with the name Wyatt Earp. Turns out It was the tombstone of the legendary frontier lawman that had gone missing from his grave in Colma more than three months earlier.
The 300-pound granite headstone had been stolen over the weekend of July 6 from the Hills of Eternity Memorial Park, where Earp and his wife, Josephine, were buried, according to an article published by the Peninsula Times Tribune. Earp, famed for the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, had been laid to rest on the Peninsula in 1929. After gaining notoriety in Arizona, he settled in San Francisco in the late 1800s and would reportedly frequent Redwood City to see his wife perform at the Alhambra Theater. The duo moved around a lot, but Josephine’s family lived in San Francisco, and so that’s why the Bay Area became his final resting place.
Santa Clara County Sheriff Earl Whitmore classified the case as grand theft, though police had no clues, no suspects and no motive. Across the county newspapers pondered the whereabouts of Earp’s monument for weeks. Theories swirled that Earp enthusiasts from Tombstone who had long wanted to bring him to Boot Hill Cemetery, even against his family’s wishes, had something to do with the theft. But officials in Tombstone flatly denied any involvement.
“Earp’s ghost probably would clobber anybody who tried to return him or his marker to Tombstone,” the Associated Press wrote at the time.
When cemetery caretakers discovered the headstone missing, they also found a five-foot-deep pit dug beside the grave. “They must have worked for hours,” said Morrison Colton, the cemetery superintendent. Investigators believed the thieves had tried, unsuccessfully, to dig up the urns containing Earp’s and Josephine’s ashes. Deep drag marks suggested the heavy monument had been hauled off in a truck.
For weeks afterward, Colma police continued to field calls from angry and curious citizens. “Eventually, it will show up somewhere,” police told the Peninsula Times Tribune a week after the theft. “A thing that size can’t disappear forever.”
Three months later, the mystery came to an abrupt end when the two Peninsula 19-year-olds struck the large stone on Crystal Springs Road.
Aside from a few scratches and a layer of dust, the tombstone was intact, Colton said. The discovery made national news again, and this time, the story came with a Hollywood ending.
Actor Hugh O’Brian, who portrayed Earp on the TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, reportedly offered to give the teens a $500 reward for their accidental recovery of the relic during a live televised broadcast, according to an article in the Peninsula Times Tribune on Oct. 18, 1957.
The tombstone was returned to Hills of Eternity, and Earp’s resting place was repaired. Though the identity of the grave robbers was never discovered, the monument became part of Peninsula folklore.
Today, the grave (Plot D, Section 2, Lot 12, Grave 2) is marked by a new stone and is reportedly the most visited site in Colma. The original recovered marker is on display at the Colma Historical Museum.
