Disappearance of Albert J. Fountain and his son Henry

What searchers found here was all that was ever found. Fountain had told a stage driver that three riders seemed to be following him. Past Chalk Hill, where the road ran through a cut, his buckboard had left the road; there were empty cartridge cases, his cravat and papers, and two pools of blood. Of Henry there was a single blood-soaked handkerchief, still knotted at one corner around two powder-blackened coins. A posse member followed a horse's track from the site toward one of Oliver Lee's ranches.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Disappearance of Albert J. Fountain and his son Henry Albert Jennings Fountain was a Civil War veteran, New Mexico legislator and pro- minent lawyer. On Febuary 1, 1896 Fountain and his eight-year-old son, Henry, were traveling home to Mesilla from Lincoln. They carried grand jury indictments against cattle rustlers. Both disappeared at Chalk Hill, and their bodies were never found. In 1899 Oliver Lee and James Gililland were tried for their murder. Both were acquitted.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• White Sands National Park — 22 mi
  The largest gypsum dunefield on Earth, a national park since 2019, surrounded on all sides by military ground whose missile tests close its only road for hours at a time.
• Mesilla Plaza — 30 mi
  A plaza laid out in 1848 by people who meant to stay in Mexico, American six years later, a stage stop and Civil War headquarters, and scene of a deadly political riot in 1871.

More markers nearby

• Albert J. Fountain Murder Site — 2.8 mi
• San Augustin Pass — 13 mi
• Site of San Agustín Springs — 14 mi
• Pat Garrett Murder Site — 23 mi