Morning readers. I appreciate you coming by this morning.
The building pictured is on the corner of the plaza in Mesilla, New Mexico. I don’t recall at the moment what connection it has to Billy the Kid, other than the fact he hung around Mesilla. I do know the building was the center-piece for a lot more resounding events than some half-baked kid with a pistol could ever have added to, or taken away from.
That building, in 1860, was the County building where Jacob Snively, former Secretary of War for the Texas Republic, and his partners filed the mining claim for their gold strike at Pinos Altos, New Mexico. They attempted secrecy, but the word leaked out quickly. They headed back to the Gila, camped after dark, and woke in the morning surrounded by a booming mining camp sprung up during the night, home of a major gold rush.
Not much later the same building became the headquarters for Colonel Baylor and the first wave of Texan Confederate invaders of the western territories. The primary Government building for the Confederate Territory of Arizona.
Baylor recruited from there and volunteer recruits from Mesilla and Pinos Altos comprised the overwhelming part of the force of Sherrod Hunter for his invasion and occupation of Tucson. One of Snively’s partners, Jack Swilling, commanded the Confederate troops at Picacho Pass, westernmost battle of the Civil War. Swilling eventually became the founder of Phoenix, Arizona.
Jack Swilling
There it sits today, that building, proclaiming itself to be something involved with a tiny man with a big pistol, but it has a lot more to say if anyone was listening.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 