Home
Billy the Kid Sitemap

Billy the Kid Territory Local Museums

Fort Sumner

Billy the Kid Museum: Don, Lula, and Tim Sweet's museum has a Billy the Kid Room that displays (under glass) one of the Kid's 44-caliber, 1873 Winchester rifles, one of his spurs (the other was lost), his chaps, and locks of his hair (he had to look good for his 1881 court appearance in La Mesilla), plus his sheepherder pal Jesus Silva's cast-iron cook pots and campfire utensils (the Kid would've used them). There are also (under glass) the faded curtains from Pete Maxwell's bedroom windows and the door to Maxwell's bedroom. Elsewhere in the museum, which Applegate, Mich., native Ed Sweet (1904-74) opened in 1953 (he started collecting stuff when he was 10), are miscellaneous Fort Sumner artifacts and antique furniture; one of Lucien Maxwell's trunks; and a decorative military sword given to cattle baron John Chisum. Souvenir/gift shop.

Hours & Fees: Open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily, May 15 to Sept. 30. Otherwise open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily, Oct. 1 to May 14. $5 per adult, $4 per senior citizen (age 62 and over), $3, per child age 7 to 15 (children ages 6 and under, free); at 1435 East Sumner Avenue (575/366-2380).

Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument: Navajo architect David Sloan designed the huge tipi- and Hogan-shaped memorial to the disastrous U. S. government-driven experiment at the Bosque Redondo, a place the Navajos call Hweeldhi ("the place of suffering") and an ordeal the Mescaleros call a gunu yuu ("herding up and penning like cattle"). Self-guided tours of the museum's permanent/rotating exhibits include dioramas, and audio and hands-on displays related to the 1863-64 forced relocation of 8,600 Navajos and 400 Mescalero Apaches to the bosque redondo ("round thicket"), where 200 armed cavalry and infantry troops guarded them from 1863 to 1868. Terminus of the Navajos' 450-mile "Long Walk" from northeast Ariz.; some 3,000 Navajos perished from neglect, starvation, disease, lack of shelter, and social discord (the Mescaleros escaped en masse in 1865). Behind the memorial, a rock cairn marks where the U. S. government's June, 1868, treaty gave sovereign status to the Navajo Nation. Beyond the cairn (just a five-minute walk farther away), the outline of the 1862-69 military post that became the Maxwell family ranch complex in 1872-84 can be retraced. A small granite tablet 100 yards west of the old visitor center marks where Pat Garrett shot and killed Billy the Kid in July, 1881.

Hours & Fees: Open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily. Closed on Jan.1, Thanksgiving Day (in late Nov.), and Dec. 25. $5 a person; children ages 16 and under, free (575/355-2573 or 575/355-2942), at 3647 Billy the Kid Road.

Old Fort Sumner Museum: The Bowlin family's museum retraces the history of the old fort in archival photos, letters, and assorted memorabilia; artifacts from the 1800s. Souvenir/gift shop.

Hours & Fees: Open 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., daily, June 15 to Sept. 30. Otherwise open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily, Oct. 1 to June 14. $3.50 per adult; $2.50 per child (ages 8-14); free, children ages 7 and under. Closed on Thanksgiving Day (in late Nov.), Dec. 25, Jan. 1, and Easter Sunday (in March or April). Billy The Kid Road (575/355-2942).

Las Cruces

La Mesilla's Gadsden Museum: Furnishings, family history, and personal effects of Col. Albert J. Fountain (1838-98), Billy the Kid's court-appointed attorney for his 1881 murder trial, and whose murder brought Pat Garrett back to New Mexico, lead to the tiny, furnished La Mesilla jail cell where the Kid spent 18 days in March and April, 1881, for his quick, two-day trial.

Hours & Fees: $2 per adult; $1 per child (ages 6-16); children ages 5 and under, free. Open 9-11 a.m. and 1-5 p.m., Monday to Sat., and 1-5 p.m., Sundays, two blocks east of southeast corner of La Mesilla plaza, at 1875 Boutz Road (575/526-6293).

Lincoln

Lincoln State Monument: Anderson-Freeman Visitor Center & Museum, Tunstall Store, Montano Store, Lincoln County Courthouse Museum. Visitor center's museum has Billy the Kid, Lincoln County War artifacts, archival photos, and history exhibits (including Ft. Stanton's Buffalo Soldiers), plus a 35-seat film theater playing a continuous, 10-minute intro film (public restrooms, drinking fountains, gift shop, public parking). Theater also has a cache of Hollywood films about the Kid.

Hours & Fees: $5 a person includes all four attractions; children ages 16 and younger, free. Open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., daily. Closed on Jan.1, Thanksgiving Day (in late Nov.), and Dec. 25 (575/653-4372).

Santa Fe

New Mexico History Museum: One of the artifact-laden exhibits is about Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War; displayed is the Kid's knife. The main entrance to its three floors of exhibits is at 113 Lincoln Ave, behind the adjacent Palace of the Governors.

Hours & Fees:It's open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., daily, from Memorial Day (in late May) to Labor Day (in early Sept.). Otherwise, same hours, Tuesday through Sun., rest of year. Closed on Jan. 1, Easter Sunday (in March or April), Thanskgiving Day (in late Nov.), and Dec. 25. $8 a person ($7 student with an ID), free for children under the age of 15. $12 for a one-day pass to two museums (505/476-5100).

Palace of the Governors: The former office and living quarters of New Mexico Territorial Gov. Lew Wallace, where he wrote the final books of his best-selling novel, Ben Hur, after hours in1878-79, was in the Rio Frijoles Room in the northwest wing. The block-wide, adobe building, built in 1609-10, overlooks the north side of Santa Fe Plaza, and fronts the New Mexico History Museum.

Hours & Fees: See the New Mexico History Museum, above (505/476-5100).

Silver City

Silver City Museum: Local and regional history, and mining exhibits in the late Henry B. Ailman's lovingly restored, two-story Mansard/Italiante mansion, built in 1881. Ailman, a young Pennsylvania native and prospector, struck it rich in one of nearby Georgetown's silver mines, the lucrative Naiad Queen. He sold it in 1880 and bought a mercantile. His picturesque Victorian home at 312 West Broadway, is within walking distance (three blocks west) of where the Antrim family's 1873-74 log cabin (Billy the Kid's boyhood home) used to be.

Hours & Fees: Open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays; closed Mondays, Jan. 1, Easter Sunday (in March or April), and Dec. 24-25; $3 a person suggested donation (575/538-5921; out of state only 877/777-7947).

Pinos Altos's Hearst Church Museum: The Las Cruces hearse that carried the remains of the slain Pat Garrett from Strong's Funeral Parlor in Las Cruces to his grave in the southeast corner of that city's Odd Fellow's Cemetery on March 5, 1908, is displayed. Principal funding for the adobe Gold Avenue Episcopal-Methodist Church, built in 1898, came from Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the grateful mother of young William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), after her husband, wealthy mining and newspaper magnate George (1820-91), had struck it rich again in one of the Pinos Altos's gold mines. The old mining settlement of Pinos Altos is eight miles north of the Silver City Museum, via U.S. Highway 180 and State Road 15.

Hours & Fees: Home to the Grant County Art Guild, the church is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Fridays through Sundays and holidays, from May 1 to early Oct.; free (575/538-9216).