Every now and then my club does a "beer & pretzels" game. You know the type; usually something with simple rules and the only aim is to have hilarious fun. Our favorites are pirate scenarios and western gunfights. Several members provide the figures and enough buildings to make the main street of small cowtown. We can usually play several games during a session.

This casual interest in western gunfights inspired a major detour from my planned route through New Mexico (en route to California) after leaving Texas.

After leaving San Antonio, I drove west along Interstate 10 to El Paso. This was a long drive (about 580 miles) and I was glad to stop for the night. I was uncertain where to go from here and so it was an easy decision to stop at the New Mexico Information Center just over the state line. I found several brochures about the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid. These intrigued me so I decided to drive to Alamogordo, NM for the night, and then tour Lincoln County.

I drove along Highway 70 to the start of the "Billy the Kid" route near Ruidoso, NM and spent sometime looking around before continuing to Roswell and the junction of Highway that connects with Highway, which passes through Fort Sumner. My nightly stop was Fort Sumner, where Billy the Kid is buried and home to a museum dedicated to Billy. Fort Sumner was also a location with some unsavory ties to the enforced settlement of the Navaho (or Navajo) and Apaches during and after the Civil War (1862-69).

The next day I visited the museum and talk with Lula Sweet, who operates the museum with her husband, Don. He is the son of the museum’s founder, Ed Sweet, who started the museum as a single building in January 1953. (So I visited it during the 50^th Anniversary!) The museum has expanded over the years and now houses about 60,000 artifacts.

The so-called Lincoln County War began in 1878 and dragged on until 1881. At that time Lincoln County covered nearly one-fifth of the entire territory. The Lincoln County War was no less bloody than other wars, which have struck the area. This particular war arose from conflicts between rival New Mexico businesses.

During the 1870s a group of merchants had gained control over the economy of Lincoln County, including a monopoly on filling lucrative contracts from the military at Fort Stanton. L.G. Murphy and J.J. Dolan, who owned huge cattle ranches in Lincoln County, had a monopoly on the cattle and merchant trade. This group and their allies were called The House. The infamous Seven-Rivers gang, of which Jesse Evans, a boyhood friend of Billy the Kid, was a member, fought for the cattle barons.

In 1877, their control was challenged by Alexander McSween, a Lincoln attorney, and John Tunstall, an English entrepreneur (he had moved down from British Columbia, where his father operated a trading store)-- who were backed by the day's biggest cattle baron, John Chisum. Chisum's employees and supporters were known as The Regulators, and followers of The House violently resisted them. The conflict was fought not only in courtrooms but also through gunfights, murders, and cattle rustlings. The war attracted desperados from all parts of New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and south of the Rio Grande.

On February 18, 1878 Tunstall was murdered by members of a sheriff's posse after he had surrendered his gun. According to the "code of the West," an unarmed man was not to be shot. The Regulators vowed to take vengeance upon House followers responsible for killing Tunstall. Among the group of Regulators was a young man known as Billy the Kid, who had befriended Tunstall. Tunstall was about 24 years old when he was killed and Billy about 18. Billy the Kid rode in and out of the war with the purpose of avenging Tunstall's murder.

In September 1878 President Rutherford B. Hayes removed Governor Axtell from office and appointed Lew Wallace as New Mexico's new governor. Wallace was famous for having served in both the war with Mexico and the Civil War. A writer, Wallace became even more famous for his novel "Ben Hur". At first Governor Wallace felt that conditions in Lincoln County might call for martial (military) law. The president, however, advised lawbreakers to return to peace. Wallace offered amnesty to persons involved in the Lincoln County War, open to anyone who had not been charged with or convicted of a crime.

Billy the Kid

Lincoln County War
Chronology
The Man Who Shot Billy the Kid: Pat Garrett