Ken Bridges/Contributing writer
Pat Garrett is another of the legendary figures of the Old West. He always had a taste for adventure and had a career as a distinguished law officer in a time when little law and order was to be found. Wherever Garrett went, trouble always seemed to follow.
Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett was born in Alabama in 1850 to a farming family. In 1853, they moved to northern Louisiana when his father bought a plantation there. However, everything fell apart after the Civil War. His father went bankrupt, his mother died in 1867, and his father died the following year. Barely 18 and with nothing left to hold him back, Garrett rode west into Texas.
For the next several years, Garrett made a modest living as a buffalo hunter in Texas before finding work on a ranch in Lincoln County in the center of the New Mexico Territory. He eventually came to own a local ranch of his own.
However, tensions between rival ranching factions exploded into the notorious Lincoln County War in 1878. A series of gunfights across the area left perhaps two dozen dead. The chaos thrust Garrett out of the shadows and into the middle of the bloodshed.
By 1880, residents enraged over the continuing violence pushed Sheriff George Kimball out of office in favor of Garrett by a nearly two-to-one margin. The chaos continued as Garrett and his posse captured William Bonney, more famously known as gunman Billy the Kid, in December after a shootout at Stinking Springs. Four months later, Billy the Kid escaped just after his conviction for murder. Garrett would encounter him again in July 1881, apparently killing him in a nighttime shootout. However, questions over the details persisted with some suggesting that Billy the Kid escaped and never died at all. Garrett, however, killed several men in gunfights throughout his life including his years as a lawman.
Nevertheless, this incident ended the Lincoln County War once and for all. Garrett became known across the country for his role. However, he stepped down from his position as sheriff in 1882 and returned to Texas. While Billy the Kid grew into folk hero status, Garrett attempted to publicize his own version of events with his book The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid, which became one of the most famous accounts of the outlaw’s life and death.
Garrett continued his career in law enforcement. In 1884, Garrett was made a Texas Ranger but resigned his appointment a year later. He attempted an irrigation business in West Texas, which failed miserably. By 1892, he settled in Uvalde on the Rio Grande to resume ranching.
In 1896, he was appointed sheriff of Dona Ana County in New Mexico after a prominent citizen and his son disappeared in the desert. Garrett pinpointed four men for murder, and he and his deputies killed two of the suspects in a blaze of gunfire in 1898. The remaining two surrendered several months later.
In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Garrett as the US customs collector for El Paso. However, after a fistfight with one employee and a number of political missteps, he was replaced by 1906.
Garrett, however, had massive debts by this time and lost his Uvalde ranch. He and his son attempted to lease a ranch in New Mexico, but a dispute erupted with the owner, Jesse Brazel, and his partners about the terms. In March 1908, Garrett rode out to meet with Brazel to discuss the matter further when he was shot dead. Brazel confessed to the shooting but was acquitted of murder.
In the years after Garrett’s death, his character appeared in many novels and movies, including the first Billy the Kid movie in 1925. Controversy and debate surrounding the life of Garrett only grew after his death. A small memorial marking the spot of his death near what is now US 70 was placed by his son in the 1930s.
Dr. Ken Bridges is a Texas native, writer, and history professor. He can be reached at drkenbridges@gmail.com.