By the summer of 1884, Doc Holliday was barely recognizable as the sharp-tongued gambler who had once stood beside Wyatt Earp in Tombstone. Tuberculosis had ravaged his body, financial trouble had followed him to the Colorado Rockies, and a growing circle of rivals in the boomtown of Leadville appeared ready to test whether he still had any fight left. The confrontation that defined his final violent episode began over a $5 debt. Holliday had borrowed the money from Billy Allen, a former policeman working as a bartender and special officer at the Monarch saloon.
Allen was connected to a group of gamblers who had opposed Holliday since their days in Arizona Territory. On August 15, 1884, Allen demanded repayment by noon on August 19 and reportedly backed the demand with a threat. Holliday, keeping the late hours of a professional gambler, did not wake until after the deadline had passed. He would later claim the debt was never the real issue.
In his view, Allen was simply the instrument chosen by a broader faction to attack him, a rivalry that reached back to the gambling wars of Tombstone. Around 3:00 p. m. on August 19, Holliday stepped out of his room in the Star Block building on Harrison Avenue.
A fellow gambler warned him that Allen had been seen at Hyman’s saloon and was carrying a gun. Holliday returned briefly to his room and either concealed a revolver himself or asked a friend to carry it for him, with witness accounts differing on the detail. Before heading to Hyman’s, Holliday stopped to speak with Marshal Harvey Fawcett. He asked whether Allen, as a special officer at the Monarch, was legally allowed to carry a firearm in town.
Fawcett reportedly told him that Allen’s authority was limited to the Monarch’s premises. At that point, Holliday allegedly said he would get a shotgun and shoot Allen on sight. Historians have read the remark as either genuine intent or a calculated attempt to avoid a search for a concealed weapon. Fawcett immediately went looking for Allen but missed him at the Monarch.
Holliday entered Hyman’s saloon and positioned a revolver behind the bar, near a cigar case, within easy reach. Just before 5:00 p. m. , Allen left the Monarch and headed toward Hyman’s, ignoring a warning from one of the saloon’s co-owners not to seek out Holliday.
Inside Hyman’s, Holliday watched through the front window as Allen approached. When Allen opened the door and stepped inside, Holliday raised the revolver and fired. The first shot missed, shattering glass and lodging in the doorframe. As Allen stumbled near the doorway, Holliday fired again.
The bullet struck Allen’s right arm, passing through between the shoulder and elbow and severing a major artery. Allen managed to stagger outside and collapsed into the arms of bystanders. A bartender restrained Holliday’s gun hand, and Captain Ed Bradbury of the Leadville police took possession of the weapon. Dr.
F. F. D’Avignon found no detectable pulse in Allen’s arm and concluded the artery had been severed. Emergency surgery saved his life, though his recovery was slow and complicated.
Large doses of morphine reportedly failed to relieve his pain and instead produced delirium. Holliday was escorted to the county jail for his own protection. While waiting to be placed in a cell, he spoke with a reporter and insisted the shooting was not about the $5 debt. He described the debt as a pretext, saying the conflict came from older rivalries and that Allen had been chosen to attack him.
He pointed to his own history in Arizona, noting he had lived there openly and had even served in a law enforcement capacity, and insisted previous accusations against him had ended in acquittals. Public opinion in Leadville leaned in his favor. The Leadville Daily Democrat observed that many in the community viewed Holliday as having been mistreated and showed little criticism of his actions. The case tapped into a broader Western belief: that a person who had not started a confrontation was not required to retreat before defending himself.
Despite that sentiment, Holliday faced a serious legal process. The day after the shooting, Captain Bradbury filed a complaint charging him with assault with intent to kill. Bail was set at $5,000, and two prominent Leadville figures, John G. Morgan and Colonel Sam Houston, agreed to secure his release.
Five days later, the judge increased bail to $8,000, likely reflecting concern over Allen’s uncertain condition. When Allen’s condition stabilized, the bond was reduced back to $5,000, but Holliday’s sureties did not immediately post it, and he remained jailed for more than a week. The trial opened on March 27, 1885. Billy Allen testified that he was unarmed at the time of the shooting and denied ever threatening Holliday’s life.
He said he did not know Holliday was inside Hyman’s when he entered. The defense countered with witnesses who said Allen had made hostile remarks about Holliday in the days before the incident and had been seen searching for him. One gambler, Pat Sweeney, testified that he had seen what looked like the butt of a revolver in Allen’s hand earlier that day and had warned Holliday that Allen was looking for him and armed. The defense also emphasized the physical disparity.
Holliday, weakened by tuberculosis and weighing roughly 122 pounds, was far smaller than Allen, who was about 170 pounds and in robust condition. On March 28, 1885, the jury returned a verdict of acquittal. The decision effectively ended the immediate legal struggle between the rival factions, and no further confirmed violence followed. Holliday left Leadville by the winter of 1885.
The high altitude and harsh winters were worsening his condition. He moved to Denver, where he is believed to have met Wyatt Earp for the final time in the lobby of the Windsor Hotel. Sadie Marcus, later known as Josephine Earp, described him as gaunt, persistently coughing, and physically weakened. By May 1887, Holliday traveled by stagecoach to Glenwood Springs, drawn by the town’s hot springs, which were promoted as beneficial for those with respiratory ailments.
He registered at the Hotel Glenwood, though how he financed his stay remains uncertain. On the morning of November 8, 1887, he died in his hotel room at age 36. Billy Allen, meanwhile, followed a very different path. He later served as an army scout in Colorado, worked as a fireman in Pueblo, joined the Klondike Gold Rush, and was appointed a deputy U.
S. Marshal. He died on March 21, 1941, at age 82.
