In Lincoln County, New Mexico, the name John Tunstall is as famous as his hired gun, Billy the Kid.
His ambition, his capitalistic competition, his cattle, his murder—the historical shorthand for all that is the Lincoln County War.
But there’s one other title Tunstall deserves— one that’s particularly significant these days. When the 21-year-old Englishman came to town in 1876 and looked around for a place to set up his mercantile, he found an adobe already a quarter-century old, restoring part of it as he expanded the property.
That makes John Tunstall perhaps the nation’s first Old West preservationist.
This story is from the July - August 2021 edition of True West.
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This story is from the July - August 2021 edition of True West.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
FIREARMS COLT WALKER 47
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While a prisoner at the castle of Perote, Walker was put to work raising a flagpole. At the bottom of the hole, Walker placed a Yankee dime, vowing to someday come back and retrieve it, at the same time exacting revenge on his Mexican captors. In the summer of 1847, when Walker's mounted riflemen returned and routed Santa Anna's guerillas, the young captain kept his promise and got his dime back.
THE BATTLE OF CENTRALIA
ON September 27, 1864, Bloody Bill Anderson and about 80 men took over the small railroad village of Centralia, looting stores and discovering a barrel of whiskey that they hauled out into the street. Wild enough when sober, they soon were roaring drunk.
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Whatever happened to the $97,000 from the Reno Gang's last heist? Up to a dozen members of the Reno Gang stopped a Jeffersonville, Madison and Indianapolis train at a watering station in southern Indiana. The outlaws had prior intelligence about its main load: express car safes held about $97,000 in government bonds and notes. In the process of the job, one of the crew was killed and two others hurt. The gang made a clean getaway with the loot.
