Lincoln, in New Mexico’s Bonito River Valley ten miles west on U.S. Highway 380, has barely changed since the Lincoln County War of 1878-1881 and is considered by many historians the most authentic old west town remaining in the United States. A host of figures, including Billy the Kid, made the small town famous, and its history earned it a reputation as the most violent town in western American history; President Rutherford B. Hayes called its single road “the most dangerous street in America.” The larger story centered not on Billy the Kid alone but on the Lincoln County War, a capitalistic struggle that began in 1877 when the wealthy young Englishman John H. Tunstall tried to open a mercantile store in competition with the monopoly of L. G. Murphy and Company. Murphy and James J. Dolan were backed by powerful politicians who were also investors and by a deputized band of gunmen known as The Boys. Tunstall was murdered, and his allies, including Alexander McSween, Billy the Kid, and cattle baron John S. Chisum, sought revenge by forming their own arm of the law, The Regulators, as county residents took sides and anarchy reigned. Of the murders, thefts, and property destruction during the conflict, only William H. Bonney, Billy the Kid, was tried, convicted, and sentenced, for the murder of Sheriff Will Brady. He was to be hanged in Lincoln on May 13, 1881, but escaped from the courthouse on April 28, 1881, killing his two guards. Today Lincoln State Monument, a National Historic Landmark, preserves sixteen historic adobe and stone buildings, and the town still appears much as it did during the Lincoln County War.