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Story of the week:
ELFEGO BACA, NEW MEXICO GUNFIGHTER LEGEND
Anyone with a Baca surname in New Mexico should research the fascinating Elfego Baca, son of Francisco Baca. Elfego was born in 1865 in Socorro, New Mexico Territory, but spent his boyhood in Topeka, Kansas. On October 1884, nineteen-year-old Elfego pinned on a mail-order badge and made a citizens' arrest of a drunken cowboy that was making the Mexican populace dance by firing at their feet.
Elfego was confronted by a small group of men and quickly dispersed them. The next morning a group of 80 cowboys crowded Baca just as he left the prisoner to the local justice of the peace. For Thirty-three hours Baca held the 80 men off. It was claimed that more than 4,000 bullets were fired into the little shed that Baca fled into for cover. The door had 367 holes in it, and a broom handle had been hit 8 times.
Baca agreed to let the deputy sheriff and Francisquito Naranjo take him under custody to Socorro, but only if Baca were allowed to keep his guns. The cowboys rode in the lead, followed by a buckboard in the rear of which Baca was seated with his guns trained on his captors. Baca was tried twice for murder, but won acquittal on both occasions.
Baca was admitted to the New Mexico Bar in 1894 and ultimately served as mayor, county clerk, school superintendent, and district attorney. He was elected sheriff of Socorro County in November 1918. He died August 27, 1945.
Sources: Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters by Bill O'Neal, University of Oklahoma Press (c) 1979 and New Mexico Legend by Chuck Parsons, True West, Oct 1993, pg 12.
1 comment:
I think I can a add new hero to my list.
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