John H. Tunstall

Tunstall's killing became an international case. He was a British subject, a young Englishman whose father, John Partridge Tunstall, had put up the money for his New Mexico ventures. The British government took the murder and the looting of his property to Washington, and Frank Warner Angel was sent west as a special agent; his report helped end Governor Samuel Axtell's term in 1878 and bring Lew Wallace in. No one was ever prosecuted for the killing, and the father's finances collapsed along with the son's business.

What the plaque says

John H. Tunstall Murder Site In one of the Lincoln County War's earliest violent encounters, John H. Tunstall was shot and killed at a nearby site on February 18, 1878. Tunstall's death set off a series of violent reprisals between his friends, among whom was William "Billy the Kid' bonney, and forces of the Murphy/Dolan faction of this tragic conflict.Tunstall, an English businessman, came to New Mexico in 1876.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lincoln Historic Site — 6.9 mi
  One street of adobe in the Bonito valley kept much as it was in the 1870s, where the Lincoln County War was fought over who would supply Fort Stanton and the Mescalero agency.
• Smokey Bear Historical Park — 12 mi
  The small park in Capitan where the living Smokey Bear is buried, a cub found clinging to a burned tree in the Capitan Mountains in 1950, six years after the cartoon was invented.

More markers nearby

• Lincoln — 6.8 mi
• Lincoln — 6.9 mi
• San Patricio — 7.3 mi
• Fort Stanton — 7.3 mi