Stacia Spragg-Braude/Tribune Lincoln State Monument employee Jack Rigney (left) passes the time with Lincoln summer resident Neil Caldwell on a recent morning in the historic Tunstall Store. Lincoln, once the stomping ground of Billy the Kid, survives on tourists' interest in the Kid and his wild times. But many residents are drawn to Lincoln's natural beauty and tranquillity.

Trail Tales: Serene setting

Picturesque Lincoln's quiet beauty draws residents, but its shoot 'em-up, Billy the Kid past is what brings in the tourists

By Ollie Reed Jr.
Tribune Reporter
July 22, 2005

LINCOLN - In 1977, while driving from their home in Houston to visit relatives in Rio Rancho, Jeremy and Cleis Jordan detoured through Lincoln to break the hypnotic monotony of New Mexico's eastern plains.

They didn't know they were redirecting themselves through a town made famous by the bloody exploits of the outlaw Billy the Kid.

"We had no knowledge of any of that," Jeremy recalls. "We were just looking for a change of scenery."

Cleis noticed on the map that Lincoln is next to a national forest.

"We thought if there's a forest, there has to be trees," she says. "Let's go that way."

It was love at first sight.

"From the first time I saw Lincoln, I felt this connection to it, like I had lived here before," Cleis says. "Still today, especially when I drive into this valley from the east, it kind of grabs my heart. It's just so beautiful."

The Jordans moved to Lincoln in 1979 and for 17 years have been the owner-operators of Casa de Patron, a bed-and-breakfast in one of the town's historic buildings.

People live in Lincoln because, like the Jordans, they are smitten by its natural beauty, seduced by its quiet solitude.

But Lincoln itself lives because of a long-dead little killer known as the Kid.

Lincoln is 32 miles southeast of Carrizozo, deep in the belly of rugged Lincoln County, on the edge of the Lincoln National Forest and in the shadows of the Capitan Mountains.

It's a picturesque place, as quiet and peaceful now as it was loud and turbulent 125 years ago during the bloody commercial rivalry known as the Lincoln County War, a fierce feud in which Billy the Kid played a prominent role.

Lincoln is not exactly on the beaten path, but Billy's legend pulls in 30,000 to 40,000 visitors each year, according to figures from the Lincoln State Monument, which consists of 10 historic sites in the town.

"Billy is always the centerpiece here," says David Vigil, who, with his wife, Jinny, owns the elegant Ellis Store Country Inn, another Lincoln bed-and-breakfast in a historic building. "If it wasn't for Billy, Lincoln would be just another ghost town."

It's not a ghost town, but it's not a boomtown either. There's 150 people in the 10-mile-long, mile-wide corridor that makes up the Lincoln Historic District, only 48 of them right in the town itself.

"Most of the people who live here are retired," says Cherie Hobbs, Lincoln postmaster for nearly 15 years. "Or, if they have lived here a long time, they have their own business."

Hobbs grew up in Glencoe, just south of Lincoln, and still lives near there. Five days a week she works in what has to be one of the quaintest post offices in the country, housed as it is in part of the Tunstall Store, which dates back to 1877 and has a solid connection to the Lincoln County War.

But jobs such as Hobbs' are not easy to come by in these parts. People who want to live in Lincoln usually have to be creative about it.

When the Jordans moved here, Cleis got part-time work as a church organist 50 miles away in Roswell, and Jeremy did consulting work out of Lincoln for the Houston manufacturing firm where he had been employed.

In 1983 they bought the historic home of Juan Patron, an energetic and ambitious young man who arrived in Lincoln in the 1860s, ended up on the wrong side of a gun and died when he was just 29. In 1988, after a few years of restoration work, the Jordans turned Patron's home into a bed-and-breakfast with seven guest rooms.

Most of the jobs in Lincoln are related to the tourist industry generated by the Kid. Besides the Ellis Store Country Inn and Casa de Patron, there's the historic Wortley Hotel, which is open to guests by reservation only; a grill; and galleries.

Other people who live here or near here work for the Lincoln Monument and for the Hubbard Museum of the American West. The Hubbard is in Ruidoso Downs, but it owns and manages Lincoln's Anderson-Freeman Visitors Center and Museum and the Dr. Woods House, the exquisitely preserved home and offices of a physician who served Lincoln in the early 20th century.

Kim Williams, 52, a curator at the Hubbard, lives just east of Lincoln with his wife, Pat, and their two children, Adam, 18, and Sarah, 16.

"For those of us who love history, Lincoln is the real deal," he says. "And everybody who lives here likes the scenery, the weather and the remoteness."

But Williams acknowledges there are downsides to living in isolated splendor.

"You can't get gas here," he says. "There's no place to eat breakfast or get a morning cup of coffee. From here, Roswell is the nearest town where you can find most things you need."

Even with Billy the Kid's help, it can be a tough go in Lincoln. You can tell that from the "for sale" signs.

The Wortley Hotel is on the market for an asking price of $389,000. Other privately owned historic sites - the Dolan House, home of James Dolan, a major player in the Lincoln County War; and the Curry Saloon, once owned by George Curry, the last New Mexico territorial governor - are also for sale.

After 12 years in business, David and Jinny Vigil put their Ellis Store Country Inn up for sale eight months ago. They continue to operate it while waiting for a buyer.

"It's just time for us to do something else," David says.

He's 74. Jinny is 69 and has been battling health problems. They want to move from Lincoln to somewhere closer to their grandkids, who are spread across the country from Virginia Beach, Va., to Huntingon Beach, Calif.

Besides, David concedes that making a success of a business in Lincoln is more difficult than in other places.

"We have people who definitely want to come here because of Billy the Kid, history buffs," he says. "But this is not like Taos, where hundreds of people are coming all the time."

The Vigils have had to depend on reservations for Jinny's candlelight, six-course, gourmet dinners, which draw people from many miles away, to get them through the slow winter months.

Casa de Patron is not for sale. If the Jordans have their way, they will never leave Lincoln.

Jeremy and Cleis, now both 71, continue to operate the bed-and-breakfast not because it is making them rich but because it is making it possible for them to stay put.

"Lincoln is not a hot spot," Jeremy says. "You're not going to make money. We didn't come here for that. We moved here to improve our quality of life."

David Vigil points to a copy-center reproduction of a black-and-white photograph that he has spread out on a table in the Ellis Store. It shows several men in Old West garb in a rough prairie setting.

"What do you notice about that?" he asks.

Someone says one of the men looks like Billy the Kid.

"It not only looks like him; it is him," Vigil says.

He points to the man to the far right in the photo.

"And that's Jesse James."

There is only one authenticated photo of Billy the Kid, and this isn't it. But Vigil is confident that the photograph depicts a meeting of the Kid and notorious bank and train robber James around Las Vegas, N.M.

Vigil doesn't believe James was shot and killed in 1882 in St. Joseph, Mo. He believes Jesse lived to an old age under an assumed name.

He doesn't believe Sheriff Pat Garrett killed Billy the Kid in Fort Sumner in 1881. He believes the family of John Tunstall, Lincoln merchant and Lincoln County War casualty, whisked the Kid away to refuge in England and that Billy died there and is buried in a town north of London.

Still others believe that the Kid survived his wild youth, died in Hico, Texas, in 1950 and is buried in Hamilton, Texas, under the name of Ollie L. "Brushy Bill" Roberts.

Never mind where he died or where he is buried. Billy lived in Lincoln, and people who walk here today are walking in his tracks. Many of the buildings standing to this day existed in the Kid's time and are connected to his gun-smoke-shrouded story.

"It's fascinating that old courthouse is still there and looks from the outside just like it did in pictures taken in Billy's day," says Neil Caldwell, 76, a mostly retired senior state district judge from Texas who spends his summers in a house just east of Lincoln.

The Kid was a prisoner in the courthouse, scheduled to be hanged for the murder of Sheriff William Brady, but he broke out on April 28, 1881, killing guard J.W. Bell and Deputy Bob Olinger while doing it.

"I like to speculate on what Olinger was thinking those last few minutes of his life when he looked up and saw Billy with that shotgun," Caldwell says.

DeAnn Kessler, manager of the Lincoln Monument for nearly 20 years, spends much of her time discussing such things with tourists.

"I love historic preservation," Kessler says. "I love history. I love that here in Lincoln we get to meet almost every visitor on the street and get to know where they are from.

"We do get a lot of comments that we are glorifying a murderer like Billy. But I just say he was a bad guy who gave me a great job."

Copyright 2005, The Albuquerque Tribune. All Rights Reserved.

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