John Chisum's Empire and the Lincoln County War
Near Roswell, New Mexico
In the eighteen seventies and early eighties, the most powerful man in southeastern New Mexico was not a politician or a soldier. He was a cattleman named John Chisum, who built an empire along the Pecos River that stretched for one hundred fifty miles and ran somewhere between eighty thousand and one hundred thousand head of cattle. It was, at the time, the largest cattle operation in New Mexico Territory.
Chisum established his headquarters at the South Spring Ranch, about three miles south of what is now downtown Roswell. He was not a gunfighter. He relied on scale and organization to maintain control of the range. But control of the range in Lincoln County in the eighteen seventies was something men fought and killed over.
The conflict known as the Lincoln County War began in eighteen seventy-eight, a struggle between competing merchant factions over who would control trade and beef contracts in the county. Chisum backed the side led by John Tunstall and Alexander McSween against the entrenched Murphy and Dolan store, which had monopolized the county's commerce. The war produced some of the most famous violence in frontier history, including the career of the young gunman William Bonney, known as Billy the Kid, who fought on Chisum's side.
Chisum and Billy the Kid eventually fell out after the war. Billy claimed Chisum owed him five hundred dollars for his services and Chisum refused to pay. Billy's gang began stealing Chisum's cattle in retaliation. In eighteen eighty, Chisum helped Pat Garrett win election as Lincoln County sheriff. Garrett killed Billy the Kid in July of eighteen eighty-one.
