Lincoln

The county had owned the Murphy-Dolan store for about five months, and was still turning it into a courthouse, when Billy the Kid broke out of it on April 28, 1881. Sentenced to hang for the killing of Sheriff William Brady, he was held upstairs. With Bob Olinger across the street at the Wortley Hotel for dinner, he killed Deputy James Bell, then shot Olinger from a window as he ran back. The spots where both men fell are marked on the ground. The famous bullet hole in the stairwell, the site's own staff say, is apocryphal.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Lincoln Spanish-speaking settlers established a town here in the 1850's, after the U. S. Army began to control the Mescalero Apaches. First known as Las Placitas del Rio Bonito, the name of the community was changed to Lincoln when Lincoln County was created in 1869. Official Scenic Historic Marker Lincoln Center of the turbulent Lincoln County War,1876-1879, a land and cattle feud marked by violence on both sides. Lincoln's historic landmarks include the Murphy-Dolan store, which later became the Lincoln County Courthouse, the store of John Henry Tunstall, whose murder set off the hostilities, and the house of Alexander McSween, where the final battle was fought.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lincoln Historic Site — 0.6 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 — 1.0 mi
• Raton Ranch — 4.5 mi
• Lucy Lepper Shaw — 4.5 mi
• San Patricio — 6.2 mi