Las Vegas, New Mexico - More Wicked Than Dodge City

NEW MEXICO LEGENDS

Las Vegas - As Wicked as Dodge City

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Vintage Las Vegas, New Mexico

Without exception there was no town

which harbored a more disreputable gang

of desperadoes, and outlaws than

did Las Vegas

- Ralph Emerson Twitchell, historian

Located on the edge of the eastern plains of New Mexico, at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, is Las Vegas, New Mexico. Though not as well known as other Wild West towns, such as Dodge City, Deadwood, or Tombstone; Las Vegas, is said to have been the worst of the worst of the Old West.

Las Vegas was established by a Spanish land grant in 1835. The last Spanish colony established in North America was originally called Nuestra Senora de los Dolores de Las Vegas Grandes (our Lady of Sorrows of the Great Meadows) by the Spanish settlers whose roots went back to the early 1600's. In the beginning, the settlement doubled as a fort, designed to be battened down for attacks by the Apache Indians. One-story adobe houses circled a large, central plaza where stock could be driven to safety.

One of the colonists’ first large construction projects was the Acequia Madre (Mother Ditch), which was used to channel water from the Gallinas River. After more than 150 years, this ancient Mother Ditch still winds behind the buildings on the Plaza and waters the gardens of the western portion of the town.

In 1846, after the United States declared war on Mexico, General Stephen W. Kearney led his Army of the West to Las Vegas to declare New Mexico a U.S. possession. When he arrived, he found a thriving community of 1,500 Spanish settlers. Training several very large cannons directly on the Plaza, the men of Las Vegas quickly surrendered.

By that time, the Santa Fe Trail was being traveled frequently, allowing entrepreneurs to send their wares westward while enterprising Las Vegans traded eastward. For the travelers along this rustic path, Las Vegas was a welcome site, as it was the first town of any size after 600 miles of travel from Kansas. These many traders, along with other pioneers and prospectors, demanded whiskey and women, for which the town readily complied.

The army remained in Las Vegas until moving to Fort Union, about 20 miles north of the city, in 1851. Built to protect the Santa Fe Trail from Indian raids, the new fort further encouraged the growth and development of Las Vegas, as the army bought supplies for the several hundred soldiers and civilians stationed at the fort.

The Santa Fe Trail offered jobs and the many town merchants prospered during this time, growing to over 1,000 people by 1860. During the next two decades its population quadrupled as it established itself as a major trade center.

But the era was also riddled with disagreements between the Spanish, the new Anglo emigrants, and the local Apache. When the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad reached the settlement in 1879, it was the biggest city between San Francisco and Independence, Missouri.

Las Vegas soon had modern utilities such as waterworks and a telephone company. The tracks were laid east of the Gallinas River, a mile from the Plaza. When the iron horse finally arrived on July 4, 1879, hundreds of citizens gathered around, including merchants, professionals, desperados, and dance-hall girls.

Overnight, a new town was born on the east banks of the Gallinas River, a mile east of the Plaza. At first, a settlement of tents, sheds and makeshift shelters were built, but within just a few short years, many permanent buildings had been established, as well as a competing commercial district. At that time, the town became so large that it rivaled Denver, Tucson and El Paso in size.

Army leaving Las Vegas, New Mexico in April, 1846, after conquering the city. Illustration from the book The History of the Military Occupation of New Mexico published in 1909. Illustration by K.M. Chapman.

The six trains that stopped there daily opened up yet another era of prosperity, bringing with it both legitimate businesses, but also introducing even more new elements into the town's already distrustful environment. Before long, outlaws, bunko artists, murderers and thieves were becoming so common that the eastern part of the settlement had become utterly lawless.

Soon, the rail terminus policed the new arrivals with a group of "peace officers” called the "Dodge City Gang." However, these members were almost as lawless as the rest, including such members as J.J. Webb, who was the current marshal; "Mysterious Dave Mather,” Joe Carson, "Dirty Dave” Rudebaugh; and "Hoodoo Brown,” the Justice of the Peace.

It was during these notorious days of Las Vegas’ history that the town was called home or visited by the likes of Doc Holliday, Big-Nose Kate, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bob Ford, Wyatt Earp, Rattlesnake Sam, Cock-Eyed Frank, Web-Fingered Billy, Hook Nose Jim, Stuttering Tom, Durango Kid, Handsome Harry the Dancehall Rustler, Vicente Silva and his gang, and Belle Sidons (alias Monte Verde).

It was in the summer of 1879 that Doc Holliday rode into Las Vegas, where he hung out his shingle for the last time. However, this idea was short lived, and only a few weeks later he bought a saloon on Center Street. His partner and financial backer, John Joshua Webb, once a Dodge City lawman, was by then a part of the notorious Dodge City Gang.

On July 19, 1879 Doc got into an argument with a local gunman, named Mike Gordon, who was rather popular with the locals. The two took the argument to the street where Doc politely invited Gordon to start shooting whenever he felt like it. Gordon obviously accepted this invitation and wound up dead, laying in the dusty street with three shots in his belly.

After a lynch mob formed with plans to lynch Holliday, Doc headed back to Dodge City. However, he arrived only to find that Wyatt Earp had gone to a new silver strike, in a place called Tombstone, Arizona.

Las Vegas Plaza, 1900

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