Editing Morgan Earp (section)

=== Move to Butte, Montana ===

In late 1877, Morgan and Louisa moved to [[Miles City, Montana]], where they bought a home. Shortly after Wyatt and Virgil headed for Tombstone, Arizona, Morgan and Louisa sold their home in Montana and headed west. Morgan apparently didn't think the wild mining town of Tombstone was suitable for Louisa, who was a petite woman and suffered from [[rheumatoid arthritis]]. He took her instead to stay with his parents in [[Colton, California]], in March 1880. Morgan set out to meet his older brothers in Tombstone on July 20, 1880. Louisa followed him in early December.<ref name="Monahan">{{cite web|last1=Monahan|first1=Sherry|title=The Dedicated Women Behind the Earp Men|url=http://www.truewestmagazine.com/the-dedicated-women-behind-the-earp-men/|publisher=True West magazine|access-date=1 March 2016|date=January 6, 2014|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160227123814/http://www.truewestmagazine.com/the-dedicated-women-behind-the-earp-men/|archive-date=27 February 2016}}</ref>

In 1878, the July 25 ''Daily Pioneer'' reported that Morgan had joined prospectors pursuing gold in the Bear Paw mountains on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northern Montana Territory, "Mr. Morgan Earpt{{sic}} arrived last evening from the Tongue River, which he left about three weeks ago."  General John Gibbon had brought troops to the Teton River to keep prospectors from being "slaughtered by Indians." Morgan remained in Montana for an unknown amount of time. On December 16, 1879, he was selected as a policeman in [[Butte, Montana]]. A story has circulated that Morgan and [[William L. Brooks|Billy Brooks]] competed for the job of a policeman. During a confrontation over the job, they got in a gunfight. Some accounts say Earp killed Brooks, and that Earp was wounded. But other accounts report that Brooks later died at the hands of a lynch mob, but no contemporary documentation of the shootout has been found. Morgan served for only three months, until March 10, 1880.<ref name="silva"/><ref>{{cite web |title=Legendary Lawman Morgan Earp |url=https://www.officer.com/on-the-street/body-armor-protection/article/10369152/legendary-lawman-morgan-earp |website=Officer |date=28 September 2011 |access-date=9 June 2018 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Rosa |first1=Joseph G. |title=The Gunfighter: Man Or Myth? |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Um4KRtIutecC |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |access-date=9 June 2018 |page=108 |language=en |year= 1979|isbn=978-0806115610 }}</ref>