Courthouse Billy was held in after his arrest at Stinking Springs by Sheriff Pat Garret and his posse of men on December 23, 1880. Tom O'Folliard, the Kid's best friend, was killed in an ambush at Fort Sumner on December 19, 1880, causing Billy, Charlie Bowdre, Dave Rudabaugh, and Billy Wilson to take flight to Stinking Springs (nearby Roswell, NM)
Stinking Springs, site of Billy's capture on December 23, 1880 by Sheriff Pat Garret.
Bars speculated to have held Billy in his makeshift jail cell in the Lincoln County Courthouse after his arrest at Stinking Springs.
Stove on second story of courthouse.
Stairwell in which Billy bested Bell by slipping his cuffs from his wrists and grabbing Bell's gun. Billy then used the cuffs to hit Bell over the head. No one is certain of the exact circumstances of the Kid's escape, though it is said by witnesses that Billy himself explained what had happened. His intention, according to Billy, was to knock Bell out, not wanting to kill him, but wanting a quiet escape out of Lincoln. When hitting him over the head with the cuffs failed to give Billy the desired result, Bell ran for help and Billy shot him with Bell's own gun, missing him once and hitting the wall in the stairwell, then hitting Bell home on the second shot. Bell, mortally wounded, made it to the back door of the courthouse; upon seeing Bell's dead body as Billy passed it to make his escape he was heard to have said, "I'm sorry I had to kill you, but couldn't help it." Billy had also said again at one point that it wasn't a matter of wanting to kill Bell, but a matter of having to.
Bullet hole where the Kid's firt shot at Bell hit the wall.
Window in which the Kid shot and killed bully Bob Olinger, using Olinger's own shotgun. Billy had timed his escape when Bob took the other prisoners across the street to the Wortley hotel for lunch, hoping to have only Bell to contend with, which did not go as planned. The shots that rang out, tolling Bell's death, brought the attention of Olinger who emerged from the Wortley and hurried to the courthouse when he heard the unmistakable voice of his prized captive and favorite browbeaten prisoner say, "Look up, Old Boy, and see what you're gettin'!" before Billy unloaded both barrells into Olinger.
While Young Guns II has Billy uttering the words, "Hello Bob; Goodbye Bob. Best $1.80 I ever spent!" was a great line, it is no less triumphant to know the words Billy actually spoke.
Bed located in back of John Tunstall's store which doubled as his living quarters. The floorboards pulled up reveal a concealed hiding place which was put to good use when Regulators Billy, Jim French, Frank McNab, John Middleton, Fred Waite and Henry Newton Brown ambushed Sheriff William J. Brady and Deputy George W. Hindman on the main street of Lincoln.
Jim French was wounded when he and Billy ran to the corpse of Brady to either confiscate Billy's Winchester, which Brady had taken from Billy that previous February after the murder of Tunstall, or to take from the body warrants for the arrest of Alexander McSween, Tunstall's partner and lawyer. No one can say for certain which it was, but what is certain is Billy was winged through the hip, the bullet coming to rest in Jim French's thigh, making it impossible for him to ride. He was taken and secured beneath the floorboards that, at the time, were located beneath the bed. One can only imagine Jim's worry and fright as the Dolan men came looking, walking around the back of the store, creaking around on that very floor in which Jim hid below. However, Jim was safe and unfound by Dolan and his men.
Different view of same bed in back of Tunstall store.
Clearly, this plaque states that it was Billy hidden beneath the floorboards while research agrees that it was Jim French and NOT Billy, as Jim was unable to ride and Billy had only been skinned during the skirmish that killed Sheriff Brady and his deputy.
All images, with the exception of Stinking Springs, provided by Susan Stevenson.
Susan is the esteemed researcher, colleague, and good friend to Frederick Nolan, the accepted, premier authority on Billy the Kid. It can be argued that the new, factual information we have learned about Billy over the past 40+ years is due to Fred Nolan, and by association, due to all of the hard work and amazing effort she contributed, Susan.
Fred and Susan continue to dig up new and exciting information on William H. Bonney, aka, the Kid, an ongoing effort that continues to pay off historically, allowing us better insight into who the Kid truly was and creating a 3-D character of him rather than the 2 -dimensional bad guy which movies have been plotting us with over a span of over nine decades.
Here she is sitting by the window made famous by Billy when he shot and killed Bob Olinger with Bob's own shotgun in the Lincoln County courthouse, Lincoln, New Mexico.
