Elfego Baca

Elfego Baca (February 10, 1865 – August 27, 1945) was a gunman, lawman, lawyer, and politician in the closing days of the American wild west. Baca was born in Socorro, New Mexico just before the end of the American Civil War to Francisco and Juana Maria Baca. His family moved to Topeka, Kansas when he was a young child. Upon his mother’s death in 1880, Baca returned with his father to Belen, New Mexico where his father became a marshal.

In 1884, at age 19, Baca acquired some guns, and became a deputy sheriff (whether through purchasing a badge or by being appointed is unclear) in Socorro County, New Mexico.

His goal in life was to be a peace officer. He wanted, he said, “the outlaws to hear my steps a block away.” Southwestern New Mexico at the time was still relatively sparsely settled cattle ranching country. Cowboys roamed the land and did as they pleased. They might come into a town, drink at the saloon, harass the locals, and then shoot up the town out of boredom. Baca meant to put an end to that.

In October, 1884, in the town of Middle San Francisco Plaza (now Reserve, New Mexico), Elfego Baca arrested a drunk cowboy named Charlie McCarty. Baca flashed his badge at McCarty and took Charlie's gun. McCarty's fellow cowboys tried to take him by force, but Baca refused and opened fire on the cowboys, killing the horse of one, which fell on his rider killing him. Baca shot another cowboy in the knee.

Justice of the peace Ted White granted Charlie's freedom. After the verdict, Elfego Baca ran out of the courtroom still in possession of McCarty's gun. Baca took refuge in the house of Geronimo Armijo.

Bert Hearne, a rancher from Spur Lake Ranch, was summoned to bring Baca back to the Justice for questioning in the murder of Jon Slaughter's foreman. After Baca refused to come out of the adobe jacal, Hearne broke down the door and ordered Baca to come out with his hands up. Soon after that, shots volleyed from the jacal and hit Hearne in the stomach, resulting in his death.

A standoff with the cowboys ensued. The number of cowboys that gathered has been disputed, with villagers at the scene reporting about forty were present, while Elfego himself later claiming there had been at least eighty. Allegedly, the cowboys fired more than 4,000 shots into the house, until the adobe building was full of holes. Incredibly, not one of the bullets struck Baca. (The floor of the home is said to have been slightly lower than ground level; thus Baca was able to escape injury.)

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