Doc Holliday Tied to be a Dentist, Died of TB

In the 1993 movie Tombstone, Doc Holliday (portrayed by actor Val Kilmer) is depicted as a good guy at heart, helping Wyatt Earp to keep order and law in the dangerous old west town of Tombstone, Arizona. As is the case with Earp, there is a mound of evidence that the real Doc Holliday wasn’t nearly so squeaky clean.  Here is the truth behind the legend of the “slickest gunslinger in the west,” Doc Holliday.
Born John Henry Holliday on August 4, 1851 in Griffin, Georgia (today, a suburb of Atlanta), “Doc” was the second child born to his parents, Henry (“Major”) and Alice Jane Holliday, but his older sister passed away during childbirth. He would remain an only child. His father was a veteran of several wars, including the Cherokee Indian War and the Mexican-American war. When he returned in 1848 from the Mexican-American war, he brought with him an orphaned Mexican boy named Francisco Hidalgo. It is said when John Henry was a young child, Francisco taught him how to become “the quickest draw in the west.”
Growing up on a “Southern frontier” farm was tough living, with humid air and erratic weather. John’s family was Scottish-Irish, like many in the region, and he was raised Protestant. His mother taught him manners and etiquette, while his father regaled him with war stories and survival skills. John was but nine years old when the Civil War broke out and his father once again left for war, but not before moving his family even further south, to the Georgia-Florida border. John attended school and was a good student, though he was noted as being somewhat rebellious.
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