Casey Tefertiller

Casey Tefertiller grew up surrounded by the West in the California coastside town of Santa Cruz. His grandfather, Orie Dunlap, had been a working cowboy, then later Chief of Police in Santa Cruz near the end of Prohibition. Dunlap had heard the negative stories of Earp from the old Arizona cowhands who had drifted West, and he passed them along to his grandson. At the same time, the local TV station carried reruns of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, portraying him as a hero. From his youngest...See more

Casey Tefertiller grew up surrounded by the West in the California coastside town of Santa Cruz. His grandfather, Orie Dunlap, had been a working cowboy, then later Chief of Police in Santa Cruz near the end of Prohibition. Dunlap had heard the negative stories of Earp from the old Arizona cowhands who had drifted West, and he passed them along to his grandson. At the same time, the local TV station carried reruns of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, portraying him as a hero. From his youngest years, Tefertiller desired to know the truth, not the legend, about Earp. Tefertiller graduated from UC Berkeley with honors in political science, then embarked on a career in journalism that carried him trough California, eventually to the San Francisco Examiner. He served as beat writer for the San Francisco Giants, then the Oakland Athletics. When the two Earp-related movies of the early 1990s were being prepared, Tefertiller wrote an article for the Examiner's Sunday magazine on the contradictory legends of Wyatt Earp. This would begin the process that led to his book, Wyatt Earp: The Life Behind the Legend (Wiley, 1997). It would be named a Notable Book of 1997 by the New York Times. He also co-authored Mental Toughness: Baseball's Winning Edge with Karl and John Kuehl (Ivan R. Dee, 2005) See less