John H. Tunstall Murder Site

Lincoln County · US 70 -- mile marker 273

In one of the Lincoln County War’s earliest violent encounters, John H. Tunstall was shot and killed at a nearby site on February 18, 1878. Tunstall’s death set off a series of violent reprisals between his friends, among whom was William “Billy the Kid” Bonney, and forces of the Murphy/Dolan faction of this tragic conflict. Tunstall, an English businessman, came to New Mexico in 1878.

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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Marker data: Official Scenic Historic Markers program, New Mexico Historic Preservation Division, Department of Cultural AffairsMarker texts come from the Division’s published marker spreadsheet, reproduced with the Division’s written permission. Where that spreadsheet records a coordinate, the pin is the Division’s own; where it records only a highway and mile marker, an address, a junction or a named place, or where its coordinate contradicts its own highway, mile and county, the pin is ours, resolved on public road and place data and marked approximate.

John H. Tunstall Murder Site

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