The Demise of Joel Fowler

Joel, or Joe, Fowler is not a name often encountered in lists of members of New Mexico’s outlaw fraternity even though he is known to have killed several men during his lifetime—23 according to one source—and to have rustled hundreds of head of livestock.

No one is quite sure where he was born but some assert that he was born in Mississippi in the late 1840s. There is little doubt that he died in January 1884. In the meantime, he spent some of his early life in Texas and is said to have killed his first man in Fort

Worth in 1861 in a dispute that involved his uncle, a local lawyer. He subsequently moved on to Las Vegas, Santa Fe, and White Oaks. He managed to make himself unpopular in each of those communities. His problem seems to have been that while he was quite amiable when sober, he became belligerent and downright vicious when he was drunk, which happened too often for many sedate citizens.

At last he arrived in Socorro County where he occupied a ranch about 30 miles west of town in the Ladron Mountains. He maintained one of those magical cattle herds that seemed to grow in size even though Fowler made several sizable livestock sales. On at least one occasion he made a cattle sale and arranged to have the buyer bring cash to his ranch to consummate the deal. Fowler then killed the buyer, kept the money, and buried the man on his ranch. Legend holds that the bodies of several men were found on his property after his death. Specifically, New Mexico rancher Montague Stevens claimed that 16 graves were found there. In November 1883, Fowler sold his ranch to J. C. Read of Fort Worth, Texas, for $52,000, a considerable sum at the time. That event began a series of events that would bring about his demise.