Raquel Barker, age 14, of Santa Rosa, Calif., for her question:

WAS THERE REALLY A WYATT EARP?

Although he has become almost a legendary figure, with many Western novels, TV shows and motion pictures featuring his exploits, there really was an American frontiersman and law enforcement officer named Wyatt Earp.

Born in Monmouth, Ill., in 1848, Earp worked as a stagecoach driver, railroad construction worker, surveyor, buffalo hunter and policeman as a young man. In 1876, at the age of 28, he became chief deputy marshal of Dodge City, Kan., a lawless frontier town.

Within a year Earp brought relative peace to Dodge City and he moved on to Deadwood in the Dakota Territory. He returned to Dodge City in 1878 and in 1879 settled in Tombstone in the Arizona Territory. There he furthered his reputation as a gunfighter, first as deputy sheriff of Pima County and later as deputy U.S. marshal for the entire Arizona Territory.

Earp and three of his brothers, together with the American frontiersman Doc Holliday, participated in the famous O.K. Corral gunfight in 1881, during which they killed several suspected cattle rustlers.

Earp died in 1929 at the age of 81