09/08/2025
Doc Holliday. 1880-1887. Photo by Fly"s Photographic Gallery in Tombstone, CO. This photo of one of the Wild West"s most famous gunslingers (and dentists) has an interesting history, illustrated by the discussion below that speaks to the questions such old photos sometimes face...
from a post by Richard Weddle (on a Tombstone history group):
Below is the famous portrait of Doc that appeared for the first time in the May 1907 issue of Human Life Magazine. The article was written by Bat Masterson, who knew Doc and recognized his picture when he saw it. There has always been something odd about this early photo-mechanical image. It clearly shows the emaciating effect of tuberculosis on a man"s face, but is so heavily retouched to make the face look younger and healthier that the features are altered. It has all the signs of an actual photograph painted over. Doc Holliday"s grand niece, Susan McKey Thomas of Valdosta, Georgia where Doc was born and raised, thought enough of this photograph to put it on the cover of her family history. She recognized it as Doc, but expressed confusion as to why it did not show him sandy-haired like in his more youthful portrait. Perhaps the most reasonable explanation is that Doc had aged since the earlier portrait and was showing the impact of tuberculosis, as well as the fact that the image had been retouched. It was sent to her by Pat Jahns, author of a highly fictionalized biography The Frontier World of Doc Holliday (published in 1957). Jahns told her it came from Fly"s Photographic Gallery in Tombstone. If true, that would make this the last known portrait of Doc Holliday. Since the actual photograph is lost to history, and all we have to go on is a photo-mechanical reproduction, the question of authenticity is not likely to be resolved absolutely. However, although heavily retouched, I believe the actual face of the tubercular, gun-fighting dentist is visible despite the paint.
