Untold Tales of New Mexico; Untold Tales of New Mexico - the Woman Who Kept A Secret

You And when they said that New Mexico was the land of enchantment, that was the biggest understatement that you can put out. We've got it all, we've got it all, our history, our legends, our people, we're a pretty dog -gun nice state. Railroad tracks that lead

to nowhere, deserted gold, silver and coal mines. There are places in New Mexico and some people call them ghost towns where such sites are common. There are dozens of them throughout the state, some completely dismantled, others abandoned, and still others where people remain to live out the rest of their lives. One thing they all have in common, though, behind each of them is a story, and together they help tell the history of the Great Southwest. Well, there were between five and ten men hanged here, and because of the lack of records, one doesn't know for sure. Well now that's not recorded in history, you will find that in any book. Then there's another story that really happened, not recorded in any book. They got him to Clayton, the county's seat, and gave him quite a

trial. But the decision was to hang him, so that stopped the train robbing I want you to know. The dusty streets of these old towns were once filled with prospectors, saloon keepers, gamblers, undertakers, proper ladies, and ladies from red light districts. They built churches, saloons, supply stores, jails, and whorehouses. The stories of those people are never ending, and they should be kept alive. Because for better or worse, they help determine what we are and how we live today. The town of Shakespeare, New Mexico, got its name in 1879. One story is that two Englishmen chose the name because it was pleasing to the British ear. The nearby Pyramid Mountains held rich silver ore, and so the town

was filled with money hungry, hard -drinking miners. Shakespeare is now a private ranch, and stands as a monument to the fact How do you do? I'm Rita Hill and Shakespeare, and this is Shakespeare, and it's been my home for many, many years. And this is the famous Stratford Hotel, and there is a very sad story about this hotel. When the town was in its heyday, the stage brought in this beautiful young woman, with more luggage than ordinary carried by travelers. She brought her trunks both of them, and she checked in at the hotel, and was given the room upstairs. She stayed in that

room. Well, she seemed very disappointed. Her lips trembled when there was no one to meet her. And day after day passed, she got thinner and thinner, and still she was to meet her intended husband there. He didn't come. And this is the room that she had rented while she was waiting for her lover to come back. Finally, one day, she put on a pretty pink dress and carried a pink parasol, and walked up the railroad track just for a walk. She never came back. Nobody knows what happened to her. And no one ever could find her. They didn't know whether she'd fallen in a hole someplace, but they couldn't find her anywhere. Men hunted and hunted for her. But today, some people sometimes see her. Looking at the window or face pressed up against the window in

that upstairs room, looking for her lover who never came. I said, she's no doubt still around hunting that man. I don't too think. We are all that knew no ground. And he sifted my stew and he said, thank you and the man. We're back to town. I can't say I'm the type of person that sees things, but I certainly wouldn't say that there aren't

any ghosts because some of them might come back and show me I was wrong or something. When I was a little girl, I always wanted to meet a ghost because there were always so many questions about the history of the place that I would have wanted to ask. And I felt a ghost would be just the person to ask. First and well, anyway, they would be just the one to ask. And this is the new dining room, built in 1870, and it doubled its the hanging room. And one of the more interesting hangings that took place in here was the hanging of Russian bill in Sandy King. This hanging, while there had been other hangings before, and perhaps there were others after, this one happened sometime in 1881. But they were both hanged

here to these timbers. And when the scouts came in the next morning, the passengers helped take them down before they could have breakfast. And naturally, the passengers asked why they had been hanged. And the old stagekeeper had to say something. He was probably in on the fight, but he had to say something. So he said, Russian bill stole a horse, and Sandy King was a damn nuisance. Now your body lies low. You know ghosts always seem to be disappearing. That's one knack of theirs. They can just vanish.

Let me show you this old saloon. There's a very funny story about this saloon. There was a couple of Negroes, perhaps from Mexico, mining up here. They came in once a week to the store to get supplies. They always went to one of the saloons. I think there were six or seven in all to one of the saloons, and they'd have one drink, but they'd never get drunk. They got in a game in this saloon one night and won the money of some of the other characters that were around here. They knew that they weren't safe afterwards, so they ran up this creek here, and the storekeeper missed them. Eventually, he just got so concerned about it. He put his hat on the back of his head and walked up to their mines. They were in the mine pit. They'd been killed and robbed.

But the strangest thing about it was that soon after that, the other men here, going to work at night, would see the ghosts of those Negroes up the curb here. They'd usually walk the track, and they'd see the ghosts of those Negroes. Well, this is strange, you know, and I didn't know how it could be. There are so many ghosts been seen here, they say, how do you tell a Negroes ghost from anyone else's ghost? Well, now that's not recorded in history. You will find that in any book. The men and women of these towns that once thrived were a vital part of the frontier a hundred years ago. The times were different, of course, so many were seeking adventure and fortune. And there was a breed of men, tough men, who were striving for their own kind of perfection. They lived the only way they could by their guns. You might say one town in New Mexico has survived because of one of those men. Lincoln Town

is well known as far as Billy the Kid is concerned. Billy used his gun, everybody did. That was the way you did things. Now, the picture, the one picture you generally see of Billy the Kid, he looks more like a hippie than he does like a nice young cowboy. But Billy was really a nice -looking young guy. Billy the Kid came here really from Silver City where his mother had a rooming house. My aunt Mrs. Brent knew her and he came here and danced though. Took him in and gave him a job at the age of 19. And the people here, he helped that needy and the children in the old. And mostly the Spanish people thought a lot of the here and also in Fort Sumner they would hide him on every town he wanted and make him escape and hide him. My uncle Sam Corvette hid him and back of the town still

almost off his door. First of all, I never could understand why he became so famous when there were just dozens just like him at the same time wandering around Lincoln. However, there's one thing that stands out from his enemies and from his friends too, the fact that he was always extremely polite to all women. And I think that that perhaps is the only person I've ever heard of in his circumstances that that's been said of. He liked girls, pretty girls in particular, and they were all very, very fond of him. Billy, they all called it, Billy. And he responded to the feminine gender. There's no mention of that in any of his history. No mention in any women that I ever hear of.

People tried to link him up with one lady or were another lady and though he was polite to all of them and tell you one thing, he had a girl in every port. He had a girl at Ported Luna, one here at Lincoln. And what if White Oaks? Everywhere he went, he was quite a gay blade. They used to say he was good to people except that he killed. Into her dark chamber, she agreed to him. In the shadows of the mace, she will lead you. Billy, and you're going all along. They say that bad guy, it's got your number.

But in Fort Sumner, he was visiting a girlfriend who lived right close to the Maxwell House, the Pete Maxwell House. And he'd pulled his boots off and they decided that he wanted some meat for supper and he had seen half a beef hanging on the porch at Maxwell's, they'd butchered him. He decided he'd go up and get steaks for them because his gal was cooking, so he could have a good meal. And he went up and he saw figures on the porch, but there was always cow punches and vistas and things around Maxwell. He paid no attention to them, but he wanted to tell Pete that he was going to take. And he knew the family well enough that he was perfectly welcome to it and he knew it, that he was going to take a couple of steaks. He went up to the door and he of Pete's bedroom because it was late at night. And he saw another figure in there because the window was there and it was moonlight and he saw another figure and he says, can't ask.

And that's when Garrett shot him. Billy the key. His past life is very elusive and the old story about him, not getting killed, persists all over the state amongst, basically amongst these older Spanish people. Now a lot of them believe that he has never killed out there at Fort Sumner, that they said he's all made up before he left here that these old Spanish friends are here taking close to the border and the city has lived. He says that what Mr. Salazar, he told him was that Billy had really never

been killed in Fort Sumner. I don't think that's true. I think the story is pretty true like to tell it. I knew that. The others told me. I knew we had a girl practically in every town. He was killed, of course, in Fort Sumner. But I stayed. I stayed in Lincoln town. Things changed after the war. Cattlemen from the East came and bought everything up. I lived here all my life to the age of 60. I died in 1920, but I still remember Billy the kid. Ghost towns are

made up here in the West. Do you ever hear of a ghost town in the East? I never did. But ghost towns are made up from places where the railroad put in a town when it was building or mining of some kind, mineral, coal, gold, silver, whatever. Then when it played out, there wasn't anything to keep the people there that moved on and left. A ghost Russian russled its shroud. This is all that is left of Elizabeth Town, or E -town as it was called. Gold found in Baldi Mountain was the reason for E -town's big boom. It started as a rowdy tent town, but because its growth was so phenomenal, by 1870, it had become the first incorporated town in New Mexico territory. My mother was born in Elizabeth Town. It was very, uh, a really very dangerous to live here because between the youths and the patchy Indians, which still called all of this their hunting ground, and one incident

at one of the saloons, they had eight killings in 24 hours. Read it here. Read it there. Read it up and down. You can see it everywhere. The boom has struck the town. Red River Town had had her day. The boom had come and gone, but E -town's boom has come to state, and she is marching on. The rails came to Folsom in 1887. By 1895, the town was a miniature city, constantly harassed by Indians, and the perfect hiding place for quite a few famous outlaws. Well, Folsom was a nice little American village, farming village, agricultural, and they have telephones and switchboard with a woman who had her front room, and then one night there was a flood on a coming off with Johnson Mason, a regular 12 first. They called down. Folks

called from up the river here and told her that there was a big flood going to hit Folsom in a little while, you know, and for her to warn the people, and this lady said, you get word to my sister at the store, too. She was clerked in the store. So Mrs. Rook just stayed at the board, warning people to get out. She stayed on that switchboard. Oh, she would not leave. She knew that if she didn't get out her house was liable to go. She was getting dark, you know, and just pouring rain down, lightning, terrible electric storm. But folks kind of decided it wasn't going to do too much, you know, but all that time the water was backing up, and about

midnight the bridge gave way. So it just come a wall on the town. That's what did the damage, you know. But the folks over at the store crossed the street from her, offered to come over and carry her across to safety. She said, no, thank you, I haven't gotten touched with everybody yet. And next thing they knew, she in the little building, the switchboard was all going down the street here. She was killed, and they did not find her body for months. When they found it, they knew who it was, because the skeletons had that defective back. The rancher down the river was cleaning debris out of his figure and run onto her body, preserved, you know, all that stuff, you know.

That story's not recorded history books. Why don't I read a little story here about Blackjack, catch him. Blackjack and his brother were around the area, I guess for a number of years. They worked with the cattle roundups. Everything, they were from a fine family just over the Texas line. No one ever suspected that they were heading a gang. Gangsters said he just decided there was an easier way to make a living than to work, like they were having to work. It was hard to believe that Blackjack catch him was leading a dual life. Blackjack held up that place three times the railroad, because there's a long curve going in. And making that curve, trains had to slow down. And the great, they had

to puff and work at us to get up it. And Blackjack, three times, held up the train at Folsom. He was shot one times. He had to give up to them because he was bleeding severely. So they nursed him back to health, had to amputate his arm, kept him in Trinidad quite a while. That first night that he was captured, they kept him here at the hotel in Folsom overnight. Took him to Trinidad and he said no, and I said it. He knew what they might do if they put him to sleep. So they removed his arm and took him, getting back to health and took him to Santa Fe for trials, but eventually they got him to play in our county seat. And gave him quite a trial, but the

decision was to hang him. It was a gruesome thing. The people that built the gallows, of course, didn't know too well how to do it. And they didn't realize that he was such a big, heavy man. He had gained weight in that jail. So when they hung him, jerked his hand off. He said gruesome thing. People had bought tickets to see the hanging, and they were wishing they hadn't. The people that remain in these towns have seen a lot of changes during their lifetimes. Their reflections on the past teach a valuable lesson to anyone who takes the time to listen. Since the statehood, the people start to move out. And this, their land start to cover up with

fences. This is what is shown. This stuff disappears. Most of it. And now we are here by ourself, jumping to the hills. I could wish they would be like it was at a certain time when everybody was being friendly and neighborly and visiting nobody thinking they were better than the others. My father always said, I was born too soon. He could see people flying through the air. He could see all these things that were coming. He said he was born too soon. But I don't feel like I was. I feel like we had a good life. We just was always able to make it. We never missed a meal.

I said that I thought there was one of the things that was wrong with the country. Too many people had allowed themselves to be pushed around when they really were in the right. I believe that we can't go on if we've been going. Oh say, and he is here. The man comes to New Mexico and stays a year. He can get support. He can't leave. So I guess that's not true. I love this place. I love this whole southwestern country. And I hate the land developers who are trying to tear it up and put a trailer house on every acre despise them. Money grab these things. But I love the hills. I remember when I was in New York, sometimes I would dream about the hills. He made me so homesick. I feel better having contact with the people. These hills, you know,

talk about roots. Mine are here. Men give birth to towns. Towns in turn give birth to men. A few of the tales of the people in places live on. But many stories are lost forever. And only our imaginations can fill in the washed out faces in the portrait of history. The story recorded in history book? No, it's not. It isn't. Can you say to me that story is not recorded in history book? That's right. Can you kind of say that for me sir? Oh yes, that story is not recorded in history books. This just happened to be this fellow old farmer here.