New Mexico features 26 recognized State Scenic Byways

(continued from Page 19) mills in the Southwest. It is also where legend has it that William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, once hid from the law in a flour barrel.

Ruidoso is one of the larger mountain towns along the route and therefore an ideal place to stop overnight or sit down for a meal at any number of restaurants. Multiple outdoor activities, including skiing in winter, are also available.

On the opposite end of the size spectrum is Alto. It’s a blip on the map, but one with world class art cache. Alto is home to both the Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts, and it boasts an incredible Dale Chihuly blown glass collection. (The other best site to see Chihuly works is in Seattle at the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum.)

Further north is Capitan. There you can visit the Smokey Bear Museum and State Park. The museum has games, exhibits and a film about the tiny cub that survived a humancaused fire in the area in 1950. Smokey, who became the country’s most beloved symbol of fire safety, prevention, and education, is also buried onsite. The park offers an ADAcompliant two-acre path. Hours of operation are 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

As you wind back south, you’ll come to Lincoln, which is on the National Register of Historic Places as representing one of the most violent periods in New Mexico history. According to newmexiconomad.com, historian Michael Wallis described the New Mexico Territory as sparsely populated but accounting for “at least 15 percent of all murders in the nation.” By 1880, the homicide rate was 47 times higher than the national average, “with gunshot wounds as the leading cause of death. Much of that violence occurred in Lincoln County.”

In fact, the Lincoln County Court House is allegedly where Billy the Kid pulled off one of his many escapes form the law, and the Tunstall Store, now a museum, is the site of one of his gunfights. Wooden crosses behind the store mark the graves of two of the men killed.

The Lincoln Historic Site manages most of the area’s historical buildings from the 1870s and 1880s, including 17 structures and outbuildings, seven of which are open year-round and two more seasonally as museums. Most of the buildings in the community are representative of

(continued on Page 27 )