A Tourist’s Guide to ‘The Real Grave of Billy The Kid’

This hub is designed to give you a real tourist’s eye view of the Billy the Kid tourist attraction.

So often the stuff written about these places are written either by travel writers or tourist information places who either are paid for their opinions or want to encourage you to go so that they can part you from your money.

I have no axe to grind, the places I write about are places that I have personally visited as an ordinary tourist and so I have nothing to gain or lose by what I write.

I write therefore only to share my own personal experiences of these places and I share to the best of my remembrance and ability.

I hope that you will enjoy your trip as you come along with me to visit the real authentic gravesite of the infamous outlaw known as Billy the Kid.

How did we come to visit this place? Well as I remember it was my husbands idea to visit Billy the Kid´s grave he had seen that it was just off our planned route and he said that it would only take a small detour to make it a part of our sites we want to see list.

Our holidays to the USA are usually fly-drive with only the first night and the last night’s motel booked. We have a vague idea of where we want to go but that often changes as we travelled as serendipity often brings us face to face with events or places that we hadn’t planned for. Such was the real authentic grave site of Billy the kid.As my hubby was doing most of the driving and it was taking us into territory that none of us had seen before it seemed a good idea.

My husband and I are part of a generation that grew up with the obligatory Saturday afternoon cinema visit which frequently showed Cowboy films so we of course grew up with the Hollywood version of the wild west and names such as Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Buffalo Bill and many more were just as familiar to us as were the names of our friends.

Armed with the location marked on our map and the assurances of the lady at the tourist information place that this was indeed the authentic resting place of Billy the Kid we set out excited at the thought of seeing the actual grave of a name that was famous throughout the world, at least the part of the world that we grew up in.

Following the directions on the map we left the highway and headed towards Fort Sumner, this by the way was way back in 1999, and so some of what we experienced has no doubt change since then, but hopefully the grave site is still the authentic grave site.

The further we travelled from the highway the more rural the roads became and what looked so close on the map (being tourists we were used to travelling on the long strait highways of the USA that were built for getting you to your destination by the shortest route in the quickest time) was beginning to have us wondering just how long this little detour was in fact going to take us.

The video above will give you some idea of how in the middle of nowhere Fort Sumner is the first museum these tourist visit is not the one we went to and it looks like a much better museum than the one we went to but they didn’t have the real grave of Billy the Kid.

If you keep right on to the end of the video you will see that they do actually get to see the real grave, though they put a shot of their motel room on the end of their video maybe they thought that was more interesting than the museum.

On route to Fort Sumner we passed under a very nondescript road bridge that had a plaque which stated ´An Historic Bridge built 1937´ I can´t remember seeing why it was historic, it looked like a very ordinary concrete bridge with nothing at all outstanding about it it made us smile to think such an ordinary nondescript structure could attain the designation historic.

After travelling what seemed to us at the time a long way off the beaten track we finally arrived at our destination and there it was the Old Fort Sumner Museum, with the words ‘Authentic grave site of Billy the Kid’ emblazoned in gold letters directly under the name of the museum.

It is a single story building and houses mostly as you would expect memorabilia connected to Billy the Kid it is not a large collection and its saving grace is the authentic grave site of the Kid himself which is located out back of the museum.

One of the most memorable facts that I remember about this museum was that it had no indoor restrooms for visitors. When I asked where the rest room was I was directed outside to a field next to the building where right in the middle of this field stood a Portaloo which had seen better days.

We openned the door of this Portaloo and quickly decided that we could wait until we could find a place with indoor plumbing and none of the wildlife that this Portaloo had.

This photo is not a photograph of the real authentic Billy the Kid´s Portaloo, I didn´t have the foresight to take a photograph of that loo so this is just a photograph of one I found on the Internet so that you knew what sort I was talking about.

This grave site is only about three quarters of a mile from the place where the Lincoln County Sheriff of the time a lawman called Pat Garrett shot and killed Billy the Kid. The first thing to strike you when you see the grave is that it is behind bars.

It seems that in the past the real grave´s headstone has been stolen on three separate occasions but I can only find mention of of two of theses thefts, the the first time it was taken was in 1950 and it remained missing for 26 years before it was found and returned.

The second time that it was stolen was in 1981 but this time it was recovered much quicker it only took a to recover the headstone, the third time is supposed to have taken place more recently but when that was I have been unable to find out.

In June each year Fort Sumner hold an Old Fort Days celebration which this year 2010 takes place on June 9th through to the 12^Th. A full list of the attractions can be found by clicking on here for the 2010 Schedule.

One of the events is the Tombstone Race the inspiration for which came from how the thieves managed to achieve the theft of Billy the Kid’s grave stone.

Fort Sumner boasts that it holds the World’s Richest Billy the Kid Tombstone race for which you have to pay an entry fee of $20. The winner of this race receives a cash prize of about $2500, though there is more than one division and there is over $4000 available for prize money.

In this race contestants run around a course with 2 obstacles similar to those encountered by the thieves carrying an eighty pound stone replica of the grave stone, this years race will take place on Saturday 12^th of June and I think that 2010 is the thirtieth anniversary of this annual event.

If you are going to visit Fort Sumner it sounds like this might be the ideal time of year that you should schedule your visit for, the three day 'Old Fort Day’s' event is packed full of all sorts of typical American type family entertainment ranging from Tug of War to Rodeo. As for other times there appears little else to see in Fort Sumner otherwise.

Did we enjoy our visit? Well it was certainly memorable and I am glad that we saw the real and authentic grave of the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid, and we got to travel some of the less travelled roads of America, but would I make the trip again? Only if it was during something like the Old Fort Days event when there are other things going on.

I found this video on YouTube of the Spencers and their team visiting the grave of Billy the Kid, and I think watching their video is the next best thing to visiting Fort Sumner in person, no wait a minute thinking about the flies, the Portaloo and the long hot drive, maybe this is better than the real thing, see what you think.

Seriously though I wouldn´t have missed this for the world, it was well worth the effort to get there and I am glad to be able to say that I have seen the real grave of Billy the Kid.

If you have enjoyed this hub you might enjoy some of the other places I have visited and written about.

 The Indian Dwelling at Manitou Springs

I loved Colorado and I loved seeing the Anasazi Indian Cliff dwellings at Manitou Springs. These authentic Indian Cliff dwellings are situated off Route 24 just west of Colorado Springs where we were staying and are located at the foot of Pikes Peak nestling under the red sandstone overhang which protects them.

 Tombstone Arizona

If you are looking for a page full of facts figures and history then this is not the page for you and there are plenty of other sites on the web already that can give you that. As someone who has been a tourist in America many times this hub will give you a typical tourist’s view of a visit to Tombstone as seen through the eyes of someone that comes from another country.

 Guadalest Spain

Guadalest or to give it its full title El Castell de Guadalest has to be one of the most photographed towns in all of Spain and no matter what time of year you visit there always seems to be some tourists about.

 Guadalest part two the Old Town

Welcome to part two of my hub on Guadalest in this hub we are continuing where we left off at the ‘Portal de San José’. The upper part known as the Castle village is entered through this 15 meter long, man made, tunnel through solid rock called the ‘Portal de San José and it is a much photographed part of Guadalest as the tunnel frames photographs wonderfully.

 Easter in Villajoyosa Spain

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 Villajoyosa Moors and Christian Fiesta

I cannot believe that it is July again already, and things are beginning to hot up in Villajoyosa in more ways than one. The Spanish are saying that the hot weather we are having at the moment is more like August weather than July weather and the temperature looks set to rise some more. Two days ago it was the presentation of the two Kings ready for this year's Moors and Christians fiesta.

 Shoshone Falls Idaho

This guide to Shoshone Falls is not a typical tourist guide as I am not a travel writer, I don’t work for a travel agency I am just a simple tourist and this article is written from a real tourists’ perspective. What you read is our own personal experience as tourists who were actually visiting Shoshone Falls and hopefully you will get a more realistic idea of what is on offer than that which is from the some blurb written by someone with a vested interest. I hope the photos will also give a proper taste of what is actually there.

 The Real Grave of Billy the Kid

This hub is designed to give you a real tourist’s eye view of the Billy the Kid tourist attraction. So often the stuff written about these places are written either by travel writers or tourist information places who either are paid for their opinions or want to encourage you to go so that they can part you from your money.

 A very Special day in St George Utah

This is another of my travel hubs and as usual it was a fly-drive holiday with only the first and last nights accommodation booked. What follows is from the perspective of an ordinary family of tourists on holiday, I hope that you will enjoy your virtual trip to St George in Utah with me.