by Barbara Latta
I took a trip last weekend and spent some time with dead people.
As a lover of history, I enjoyed exploring the historic buildings
in west Texas and across the
border into New Mexico. Reading the plaques mounted
on crumbling brick brings pictures to mind of all the people who walked through
the doorways and the events that transpired under the roofs of the now ancient
wooden beams supporting the antique structures.
 |
| Billy the Kid had a reputation for lawlessness and murder. |
One such building in Mesilla, New Mexico housed the
courtroom where Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced to hang. He escaped the
jail cell he was held in and that sentence was never carried out. He did,
however, meet his demise when Pat Garrett later shot him. This young man was
only 22 years old, and in that short lifespan he had made a reputation of
lawlessness and murder.
Concordia Cemetery in El Paso is the burial place of over 60,000 people. Some were famous outlaws and murderers whose crime spree covered
decades and left destruction in their wake. One of these was John Wesley Hardin,
the man who is remembered for killing more people than any other gunslinger in
the West. It is reported he once shot a man for snoring too loudly.
