Hico: Where Billy the Kid Supposedly Grew Old

Hico is a small Hamilton County town with one outsized claim to fame: a local man named Ollie Roberts, who went by Brushy Bill, insisted until his dying day that he was Billy the Kid, the outlaw supposedly shot and killed by Pat Garrett in New Mexico in eighteen eighty-one. A St. Louis investigator named William Morrison tracked Roberts down in nineteen forty-eight, collected his story, and brought him before the New Mexico governor in nineteen fifty to petition for a pardon.

Governor Thomas Mabry rejected the claim. Brushy Bill returned to Hico heartbroken and dropped dead on a downtown sidewalk one month later, four days short of what he claimed was his ninety-first birthday. Historians consider his claim almost certainly false, but Hico has leaned into the legend with a Billy the Kid Museum drawing curious visitors to this day.