SEARCH FOR GRAVES

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21203, 28 August 1940, Page 15

SEARCH FOR GRAVES

BAD MEN OF AMERICA HOLIDAY-MAKERS’ LURE (Times Air Mail Service) LONDON, July 6 The days of the two-gun bad man of America’s once wild West are over. But he is still playing his part in American life. Finding the graves of the killers who once roamed the range is the latest lure for holidaymakers in the mountains and prairies of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, states the New York correspondent of the Evening Standard. Many of the early outlaws were buried where they fell beneath the guns of the sheriff’s posse, in out-of-the-way spots far from the modern roads and approachable only on horseback. Dude ranches of to-day are “crashing in” on that, and organising “treasure hunts” with prizes for those who locate a gunman’s resting place in a given number of hours. “Faced Mob of 300” Perhaps the three most famous graveyards in the West are at Tombstone, Arizona, where are buried more than 300 people who “died with their boots on,” the Boothill burial ground at Old Tascosa, Texas, along the route of the old cattle trail down to the Texas Panhandle, and at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where Billy the Kid and his two chief lieutenants lie. Along the streets stand signs erected by the State of Arizona, proud of its wild beginnings, with such inscriptions as: “At this point Wyatt Earp faced a mob of 300 and stood them off until his prisoner could escape the lynchers.” Tombstone, far down in Southern Arizona, is one of the hottest spots in the torrid West. It is known as “the town that was too tough to die,” and to-day its Bird Cage Theatre and Crystal Palace Bar, both scenes of many shootings in the wild 01a days, are stiil there. The old Boothill Cemetery lies not far from the Mexican border, up among the rocky hills where, in the bad old days, highwaymen ambushed

cattlemen or travellers along the trail. Many died on both sides, and here and there along the trail graves are to be found where the victims were roughly interred by the sheriffs’ men. The grave of Billy the Kid is a reminder of the most desperate killer in all the west, whose wild daring surpassed even the exploits of the celebrated Jesse James. Before he was 20, Billy the Kid (whose real name was William H. Bonney) had 21 notches on his gun, and his name and picture were posted on every wayside post throughout Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. His grave and those of his two cronies lie side by side in a lonely spot ten miles from old Fort Sumner. There is a single headstone, reading: “PALS. Tom O’Folliard, died 1880. Charlie Bowdre, died 1880. William H. Bonney (Billy the Kid), died 1881.” Bonney was slain by a Western sheriff whose name is still respected in these parts—Pat Garrett—a fearless Irishman who surprised the killer in a hut and was the first to draw.