Old Dowlin Mill

The mill is Ruidoso's oldest building, put up in 1868 by Captain Paul Dowlin on his second try at a mill here. Dowlin was also postmaster of the settlement that took the mill's name, and in 1877 he was shot and killed behind it in a quarrel with a cowboy, Jerry Dillon. Billy the Kid was a friend of both the Dowlins and the Lesnetts, whose Frank Lesnett ran the mill. This panel is a pointer: it stands on US-70 and sends drivers up NM-48 to the mill on Sudderth Drive.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Old Dowlin Mill Famous New Mexico landmark for over 100 years. Original building still stands and water turns massive water wheel during the summer. Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett and General Pershing visited here. Turn on NM48, 2.7 miles to west, then proceed 1.4 miles.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smokey Bear Historical Park — 14 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.
• Lincoln Historic Site — 16 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.
• Three Rivers Petroglyph Site — 24 mi
  More than 21,000 petroglyphs on a basalt ridge above the Tularosa Basin, one of the few places in the Southwest set aside for its rock art alone, walked on a rough half-mile trail.

More markers nearby

• Birthplace of Elizabeth Gutiérrez Garrett — 7.2 mi
• John H. Tunstall — 9.0 mi
• Fort Stanton — 12 mi
• Eve Ball (1890-1984) — 14 mi