Wyatt Earp is probably the best known of Nome’s early residents, based on his notoriety for the “Gunfight at the OK Corral,” which has been immortalized in several books and movies. Earp grew up in rural Illinois, but filled the rest of his life with excitement, first on the Western Frontier, then in the Arctic. Earp and his wife, Josephine, ran the Dexter Saloon (not to be confused with the Dexter Roadhouses along the Iditarod trail) during summers in Nome, but spent their winters outside Alaska. Wyatt made no secret that he was there to “mine the miners,” and left for good after a few seasons with a reported $80,000. Today, Nome City Hall is on the spot where the Dexter Saloon once made its home as the “only second class saloon in Alaska.”
