Did Billy the Kid Die in Hico, Texas?
A Texas tale where history and legend meet
Official history says the Kid died in New Mexico. Hico has never been so sure.
There are some stories that settle down and behave themselves in the history books, and then there are stories that keep one boot in the door. Billy the Kid’s is one of those. Most folks have heard how his story ended in New Mexico, but down here in Texas, the little town of Hico has held on to another ending for a very long time.
The well-known tintype of Billy the Kid, also called William H. Bonney. Image source: New Mexico Tourism Department.
The official version is plain enough. Billy the Kid, also known as William H. Bonney, was shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on July 14, 1881. Billy was only about twenty-one years old. His body was identified, he was buried, and that was supposed to be the end of it.
But legends do not always stay buried.
In 1948, a man named William Morrison was working on a land claim for an elderly fellow called Joe Hines. While Morrison was trying to sort out the claim, Hines told him something mighty strange: he said he was really Jesse Evans, an outlaw who had ridden during the days of the Lincoln County War. Then Hines went one step farther. He said Billy the Kid had not died in 1881 at all. According to him, Billy was still alive and living near Hico under the name Ollie “Brushy Bill” Roberts.
That claim led Morrison to Brushy Bill, an old cowboy with a weathered face and quite a story to tell. Brushy said that on the night Pat Garrett supposedly killed Billy the Kid, Garrett had actually shot another outlaw named Billy Barlow. The dead man was passed off as the Kid, Brushy said, while the real Billy slipped away and eventually disappeared into Mexico.
Ollie “Brushy Bill” Roberts, the Hico-area man who said he was Billy the Kid. Image source: All That’s Interesting.
Now, Brushy Bill did not come to the table empty-handed. Morrison said the old man carried twenty-six bullet and knife scars. Several people who had known Billy the Kid signed affidavits saying they believed Brushy Bill was the same man. That does not make the claim proven, but it was enough to keep Morrison digging—and enough to keep the story alive.
Brushy Bill said he was not looking for fame. What he wanted was the pardon he believed New Mexico Governor Lew Wallace had promised Billy the Kid back in 1879. Morrison took up his cause, and on November 29, 1950, he got Brushy Bill a hearing with New Mexico Governor Thomas Mabry.
The hearing went badly. Brushy Bill was old, sick, nervous, and surrounded by reporters and skeptics. Governor Mabry refused to grant the pardon and said he did not believe the man standing before him was Billy the Kid. Brushy went home to Hico without the one thing he had come for.
Four weeks later, on December 27, 1950, Brushy Bill collapsed while walking to the post office in Hico and died. Folks around town said he died of disappointment. I do not know whether a broken heart can be entered on a death certificate, but I surely understand what they meant.
The skeptics have good reasons for doubting him. One argument repeated over the years is that Brushy Bill could not read or write, while Billy the Kid could. Even that point is disputed, because other accounts say Roberts kept notes in composition books. The harder piece of evidence is the Roberts family Bible, which reportedly gives his birth year as 1879. If that date is right, he would have been only two years old when Billy the Kid was supposedly killed. That is a mighty big hole in the story.
Still, Hico has never let the tale fade away. The Billy the Kid Museum sits right on the main strip in town, keeping Brushy Bill’s claim on display for anybody curious enough to stop. His grave is down in Hamilton, about twenty miles south, under a granite arch carved with the words “Billy the Kid.” History may have made up its mind, but Texas left room for a little doubt.
And I will admit I am a tiny bit partial to Brushy Bill’s side for one personal reason: he died on December 27, and that happens to be my birthday. That does not prove a blessed thing, of course, but it makes me feel like I ought to give the old fellow a fair hearing.
So what do you think? Did Pat Garrett really kill Billy the Kid in Fort Sumner in 1881, or did the Kid live long enough to become an old cowboy in Hico, Texas? Leave me a comment and tell me which side you believe.
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For further reading: History.com · True West Magazine · City of Hamilton gravesite page
