Friends of Pat Garrett

The Town of Mesilla is hosting a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the J. Paul Taylor Visitor Center Thursday, April 24 at 5:30 p.m.

As part of the ribbon-cutting ceremony there will be a Billy the Kid display inside the Visitor Center. The display will feature historical photos, information and artifacts pertaining to Mesilla’s past. The subject is the historic period of April 1881, when Billy the Kid was a prisoner in Mesilla and tried and convicted of murder. A team of volunteers has collected names and items for the display. One of the items is the barber chair built c1870 in which Billy the Kid had his hair cut before the trial. The chair was once in the Billy the Kid Museum, owned by Dr. George Griggs in the 1930s, which is now La Posta Restaurant. The chair is currently in a private collection. An open house of the museum display will take place from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

The visitor center is an extension of the current Mesilla Town Hall, located at 2231 Avenida de Mesilla.

The Friends of Pat Garrett and the Mesilla Museum volunteers are organizing a tour to retrace some of Pat Garrett’s last steps on the day he was killed.

The tour will begin at 8:30 on March 15 and will probably take 6-7 hours. A fee of $40 per car is being asked. The full amount of the fee will go the the Mesilla Billy the Kid Museum, currently being established by the Village of Mesilla and a volunteer group.

The meeting location for the tour is the Northwest corner of the KMart parking lot. The address of the KMart is 1900 Bataan Memorial E. Click here for a map.

Bring your own lunch and drinks — water is highly recommended.

The first stop of the tour will be the site of the Garrett ranch house on the White Sands Missile Range. This is a restricted location, so this is one of the few chances the public has to see this site. There are no ruins of the house, but there are few rock walls and some artifacts. Cameras can be taken and used at the Garrett ranch house site, but are not to be used elsewhere on the Missile Range.

The second stop will be old Main street of Organ. Garrett was in Organ often.

The third stop will be the Organ cemetery.

The fourth stop will be the site where Garrett was killed. This may require walking a mile or so to reach. At the site of the marker placed by Jarvis Garrett in memory of his Dad’s killing, the Friends of Pat Garrett will re-enact some of the actual testimony given at the official inquest following Garrett’s death.

The fifth stop will be the location of Garrett’s original burial in the Las Cruces Odd Fellow’s Cemetery. Garrett’s remains were moved to the Masonic Cemetery in 1957.

The last and final stop will be at Garrett’s grave site in the Las Cruces Masonic Cemetery.

The tour is limited to 20 cars.