Billy The Kid's Gravesite

The legendary outlaw Billy the Kid was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett and buried in Fort Sumner. Billy the Kid, also known as Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, and William H. Bonney was a 19th-century American frontier outlaw and gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War. According to legend, he killed 21 men. McCarty (or Bonney, the name he used at the height of his notoriety) was 5 ft. 8 in. to 5 ft. 9 in. tall with blue eyes, a smooth complexion, and prominent front teeth. He was said to be friendly and personable at times. Relatively unknown during most of his lifetime, Billy was catapulted into legend a few months before his death by New Mexico’s governor, Lew Wallace, who placed a price on his head. Sheriff Pat Garrett shot and killed Billy the Kid on July 14, 1881. Billy was buried the next day in Fort Sumner’s old military cemetery, between his fallen companions Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre. A single tombstone was later erected over the graves with a one-word epitaph of “Pals” carved into it. The tombstone has been stolen and recovered three times since it was set in place in the 1940s, and the entire gravesite is now enclosed within a steel cage. Following his execution by Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett, several biographies were written that depicted the Kid as either a vicious outlaw or a nineteenth-century Robin Hood.