Lincoln, New Mexico

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Lincoln, New Mexico
War and Peace in the Heart of Billy-the-Kid Country

By Carolyn Rice

All is quiet now on Main Street. Neither the old man walking his dog, the small sign advertising rooms at the Wortley Hotel nor the mist rising over the nearby Capitan Mountains hints that this street saw one of the Western frontier's bloodiest battles. The Lincoln County War came to a climax here in July 1878 in a five-day battle that made William Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, infamous in his own time.

While tensions had long simmered among Lincoln residents, they reached the boiling point when John Tunstall, a young Englishman, opened a new general store in 1877. He and his partner, local lawyer Alexander McSween, wanted to give the J.J. Dolan & Company general store some competition. The Dolan firm engaged in price fixing and intimidation, but until Tunstall opened his doors, Dolan had the mercantile monopoly in Lincoln County.

The new store's business life was brief. Tunstall was murdered on February 18, 1878, and Lincoln erupted in open war.

"Tunstall must have been expecting trouble," comments Sharon Smith, a ranger with the New Mexico State Monument. "Just look at the store's shutters. There's a slab of steel between layers of wood. Nobody could shoot through that."


	There Billy stood, pointing Ollinger's own shotgun down at him. Billy let him have it.

You can examine the shutters and the entire Tunstall store because it, like most of the buildings that figured in the Lincoln County War, has been preserved to the last nail and floorboard. Nor is Lincoln a ghost town; people still live here, though the population has shrunk to 75. More than 450 lived here during the days of the war, when Lincoln was the seat of the largest county in New Mexico Territory.

Yet, despite the town's historic importance, Lincoln might have been a mere footnote in American history if it hadn't been for one of Tunstall's employees—Billy the Kid. A Tunstall ranch-hand, 18-year-old Billy became one of the "Regulators" sworn to avenge his boss's murder. Billy and the Regulators shot and killed Lincoln sheriff William J. Brady and deputy George Hindman on April 1, 1878. While wounded in that escapade, the Kid managed to get away to take part in the deadly ambush of another Dolan sympathizer three days later.

The whole little war, at its height, raged during five days in July when the Regulators holed up in McSween's lavish house where they were besieged by Dolan's army. McSween and four supporters were killed in the battle, and the McSween house burned to the ground. Amid this inferno, Billy and a few companions managed to blaze their way out of the house and out of town. The Dolan faction declared themselves victors in the war, having killed, silenced or scared off all Tunstall/McSween sympathizers. You might think Billy would have stayed away from Lincoln after that, but voluntarily or involuntarily, he kept coming back. In February 1879, he met with Dolan and his colleague, Jesse Evans, to sign a peace pact officially ending the Lincoln County War. Under indictment for Sheriff Brady's murder, the Kid had made a deal with the New Mexico governor, who promised leniency if Billy testified against Evans. Held at the Patron House, Billy must have had a bad feeling about the arrangement because one night before he was scheduled to testify, he quietly escaped.

Billy managed to make it to his 21st birthday a free man. Then Sheriff Pat Garrett (allegedly a former cattle-rustling pal of Billy's) tracked him down, arrested him and took him to trial in Mesilla (near Las Cruces). Quickly convicted of being Brady's single murderer, despite the fact the late sheriff's body was aired with 12 bullet holes—more than possibly could have come from Billy's gun—the Kid was transported back to Lincoln for hanging in the spring of 1881.

Since Billy already had escaped from Lincoln twice (not to mention several other towns across New Mexico), the law was taking no chances. His hands and feet were shackled, and two deputies, J.W. Bell and Robert Ollinger, were charged with guarding him around the clock in the Lincoln County Courthouse (which had been the Dolan store the year before). One night, Billy claimed an urgent need to visit the outhouse shortly after Ollinger left for dinner across the street at the Wortley Hotel. What happened next is open to endless debate, but somehow Billy got his hands on a revolver and shot Bell. Hearing the noise, Ollinger abandoned his meal, ran across the street and looked up at the second-story window of the courthouse. There Billy stood, pointing Ollinger's own shotgun down at him. Billy let him have it. Frightened (or sympathetic) townspeople saddled a horse for Billy who rode out of Lincoln never to return.

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Carolyn Rice, a freelance writer living in New Jersey, often visits her parents who have retired near now-peaceful Lincoln, New Mexico.

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