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Salvador Vargas of Chihuahua, Mexico, looks at a Winchester rifle, reportedly once owned by the Kid, during a stop at the Billy the Kid Museum in Fort Sumner. According to the museum, 25,000 people tour the collections here each year. (Mike Sandoval/For the Albuquerque Journal)
FORT SUMNER – Did Billy have a gun?
July 14 marked the 140th anniversary of the night Lincoln County Sheriff Pat Garrett killed outlaw Billy the Kid in a darkened room of a house in Old Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
That’s a fact. Never mind what you saw in the “Young Guns II” movie, most reputable historians and researchers agree that Garrett shot the Kid to death that night. What some doubt, however, is that the Kid was carrying a gun at the time, as Garrett and others on the scene reported.
When I was first diving deep into all the Billy the Kid scholarship back in the last century doesn’t that sound ridiculous? much heavy lifting had already been done by my go-to researchers, Philip J. Rasch, Nora True Henn, William A. Kelleher and Frederick Nolan. Even then folks thought there was little more to find out.
True West Magazine
If you love Westerns and classic gunfight in the street face offs, you can thank one guy:
Wild Bill Hickock, the first gunfighter and the founder of the feast.
All the gunfights featured in countless Westerns over the past 12 decades originated with one fight and one man. Bob Boze Bell will break it down, how this one seminal event featuring this one classic frontiersman became the foundation of the Western movie staple that continues to resonate with fans around the world.
Not only was Wild Bill the first gunfighter, he was the first celebrity who set the style that has become known as the Western Man in fact and fiction.
Mary Help of Christians, protector of Chinese Catholics
The trust of Chinese Catholics in Mary s help does not diminish despite the difficulties
The Marian procession at the shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan in May 2011. (Photo supplied)
As Christians celebrate the Feast of Mary Help of Christians on May 24, Catholics are also marking the 13th day of prayer for the Church in China. Pope Benedict XVI established it on May 27, 2017, with his letter to Chinese Catholics. It was celebrated for the first time the following year when Pope Benedict composed a special prayer for Our Lady of Sheshan.
The shrine of Our Lady of Sheshan, not far from Shanghai and named after Mary Help of Christians, is the most popular shrine in China. It is on top of a hill and many faithful climb the hill on their knees, pausing on the 14 Stations of the Cross.
True West Magazine
“Doc Holliday is ten feet tall and weighs a ton.”
J.J. Webb at the Old Town Las Vegas Jail, 1880
This photo first came to our attention when it appeared in Frederick Nolan’s book The West of Billy the Kid. Nolan published it, in part, because the Kid spent time in this jail in December 1880, when Pat Garrett escorted him and members of his gang to Santa Fe. Recently some historians have speculated that Holliday is in the photograph, to the right of Webb (in shackles).
True West Archives
The first time we saw this historical group photo taken in Las Vegas, New Mexico Territory, was in 1998 in Frederick Nolan’s book