Elfego Baca & The “Frisco War” by Jesse Wolf Hardin

Elfego Baca & The “Frisco War”

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Word of a “Frisco War” promptly spread to the outlying ranches, including those of the well-known James H. Cook and the Englishman, William French. After receiving a signed agreement that he wouldn’t be bothered, Baca agreed to allow his prisoner to be “tried” on the following morning at Milligan’s Bar. McCarty was fined five dollars and released, complaining about his not getting his revolver back even as the prudent Baca began backing out the side door and chasing out the residents of the nearby Armijo jacal. Pronounced ha-call, Baca's temporary fortress was typical of the one-room buildings found scattered throughout the valley. Made of thin cedar poles stuck into the ground and coated on both sides with an adobe (mud) slip, its walls would offer little resistance to the concerted attack he expected to follow.

Socorro County, New Mexico, photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Rumors flew throughout the neighboring regions of an “uprising” of the Hispanic population against the stockmen, until the growing mob felt emboldened to seek their revenge. A roper known as Hearne was the first to chance the door, kicking at it and screaming that he’d “get” Baca. He was answered most poignantly by twin two-hundred and fifty grain slugs, one of which caught Hearne solidly in the gut and sent him to the ground. The cowboys responded with what became a steady volley of rifle fire, lobbing rounds from nearly every angle. What the quickly gathering mob failed to realize was that the floor of Baca's insubstantial-looking refuge had been dug down a full foot and a half below ground level. He was thus enabled to coolly return fire with his single-action handguns even as lead rained through the space above.

While most of the town climbed up on the overlooking hills to watch, a group of the attackers stretched blankets between the nearby houses to conceal their movements, and others fired from behind the buttress of the adobe church. One brave attacker fell back with his scalp neatly creased by a bullet, after attempting to approach the jacal with an iron stove-door for a shield. Finally as day turned into night, they were able to toss flaming kerosene-soaked rags onto the dirt and latilla (branch) roof. One wall gave way under the combined assault of lead and fire, causing a portion of the roof to collapse on the hapless defender.

They were pretty sure they’d “fixed his wagon” by this time but opted to err on the side of caution, deciding to wait until the following day to try and dig him out. Come the first gray light of dawn they were surprised, mortified even, by the thin wisps of smoke rising from the perforated woodstove. To one end stood a plaster statue of the Nuestra Señora Doña Ana, while at the other end the unruffled Baca nonchalantly flipped his breakfast tortillas! The battle immediately regained its former intensity, with both Elfego and the stoic Señora remaining miraculously unscathed.

When at last James Cook and the newly arrived Deputy Ross of Socorro convinced Baca to come out, personally guaranteeing his safety, some of the Hispanic spectators yelled for him to run. With both guns in hand and every cowboy's rifle trained on his chest, Elfego slowly approached to make his truce. Yes, he would surrender... but only if he could keep his weapons, travel in the back of a buckboard with his and McCarty’s Colts, and with all accompanying cowhands keeping at least thirty feet behind them for the entire trip to the Socorro courthouse! The ever-blessed Elfego even missed an ambush planned for him on route, when two different groups of avengers each mistakenly thought the other had carried out the mercenary deed. In jail only four months, Elfego was tried on two separate occasions, and was surprisingly acquitted each time.

Nearly everyone writing about this affair has accepted Baca's personal tally of battle casualties: four men killed and eight wounded. A close look at every other historical source indicates that only the one attacker actually died from gunfire, with a second killed by when his own horse fell on him. Likely the poor fellow with the bullet through the knee was the only one with a significant nonfatal wound. Regardless, the Frisco War remains the most astoundingly unequal civilian gunfight ever recorded. And a source of conversation and metaphor still.

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Elfego Baca It was the Frisco shootout that earned Elfego his lifelong reputation as a tough hombre, a reputation that followed him throughout his years as a flamboyant criminal lawyer, school superintendent, district attorney, chief bouncer of a Prohibition Era gambling house in Juarez, and a bout as the American agent for General Huerta during the convoluted Mexican revolution.

For slightly over eighty years Elfego Baca remained a lively part of New Mexico's cultural landscape, telling spirited stories of cagey señoritas and political intrigue to anyone with the time to listen. He was one of those who lived through the last half of the 19th Century and survived the first half of the 20th. In the year of Elfego's delivery to an unsuspecting world horses were the primary means of transportation, even in the more civil East. He died as eight-cylinder roadsters zoomed by outside his Albuquerque office, on August 27, 1945.... exactly three weeks after the first-ever wartime deployment of a nuclear weapon.

Like Elfego before them, the current residents of this rurality demonstrate a tenacious ability to survive the machinations of the modern world, hanging on to this challenging and stunningly beautiful land the way the juniper trees cling to the sides of the sandstone cliffs. Newly arrived nature-lovers and fifth generation ranchers share more in common than they may care to admit. They join a history of devout Mormon settlers as well as unrepentant outlaw sinners, Texas and Oklahoma cowboys and Hispanic homesteaders, the ghosts of the Mogollon Indians and the sprits of those yet unborn.... in devoting themselves to a place.... a place known to evoke not only beauty but freedom. Here the land that lived before our kind, the land that will outlive one’s mortal life, speaks in a language unaltered by either man or time. And the stories of the West’s diverse peoples and wild characters still breathe in its winds and rivers, as in their poignant campfire telling.

About the Author: Elfego Baca & The “Frisco War” is adapted from Jesse L. "Wolf" Hardin's popular book Old Guns & Whispering Ghosts which includes a number of fascinating stories of the colorful characters and firearms of the wild West, as well as dozens of previously unpublished historical photos. Hardin is a lifelong student of Western history and antique firearms, as well as a prolific artist, entertaining Old West presenter and storyteller. In addition to Old Guns & Whispering Ghosts , he has published four other books as well numerous articles which have appeared in more than 100 magazines. Hardin, who lives in an isolated canyon in the Gila Mountains of southwest New Mexico , also tends to a wildlife sanctuary. To learn more about Jesse Hardin and his newest book, visit his website: http://www.oldgunsbook.com

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