In frozen-in-time town, Billy the Kid's artistically updated hideout is for sale
Looking for a place to hide out in New Mexico? This artistically updated $545,000 home in the preserved Old West town of Lincoln, New Mexico, is the perfect escape.
At least, Billy the Kid thought so.
The adobe home, built in 1878, was the hiding place of the infamous Old West bandit before he escaped from Lincoln with Sheriff Pat Garrett hot on his heels. He apparently hid out in a flour barrel in the kitchen, and under a bed when soldiers from nearby Fort Stanton came into the house pursuing him, according to sellers Dee and Greg Miller.
The Millers would know, actually. They came to town and purchased the home in 1981 to build a museum about the Lincoln County War, which featured a number of the Old West's most famous names, including Billy the Kid and Garrett.
The Lincoln County War was a gang war of sorts over the control of dry goods in the area. Billy the Kid, along with a few other ranch hands known as the Regulators, banded together to fight Lawrence Murphy's mercantile operation in Lincoln, after Murphy's men murdered their boss, John Tunstall. They fought bloodily from 1878 to 1881.
All of the homes in historic Lincoln are owned by the state or federal government except for this one and two others, part of the Lincoln Historic Site along Billy the Kid Trail (or, more formally, Billy the Kid National Scenic Byway). The home has also hosted a number of notable figures throughout the years, including New Mexico Gov. Gary Caruthers, actress Dana Delany, astronaut Harrison Schmitt, and John Grey, author of the epitomic '90s relationship book "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus."
Dee Miller hopes whoever purchases it cherishes it as much as they did.
"I'd love to have someone buy it who appreciates the historic value," she says. "It's a wonderful house and it's been around a long time. It certainly does have an interesting history."
