Elfego Baca
Elfego Baca (
February 10,
1865–
August 27,
1945) was a legendary lawman, lawyer, and politician in the closing days of the American
wild west.
Elfego Baca was born in
New Mexico just before the end of the
American Civil War. His family later moved to
Topeka, Kansas when he was a young child. Upon his mother's death in
1880, Baca returned with his father to
Belen, New Mexico where his father became a marshal.
In
1884, at age 19, Baca stole some guns and bought a mail-order sheriff's badge and more or less appointed himself deputy sheriff in
Socorro County, New Mexico (near present-day
Reserve, New Mexico).
His goal in life was to be a top-notch peace officer. He wanted, he said, "the outlaws to hear my steps a block away." Southwestern New Mexico was still relatively untamed, open cattle ranching country.
Cowboys roamed the land and did pretty much as they pleased. They would come into town, drink at the saloon, harass the local Mexicans, and shoot up the town.
On
December 1,
1884, in the town of Frisco (now
Reserve), Elfego Baca arrested one of the cowboys who had been shooting up the town and had taken pot shots at Baca. The man's friends wanted him released but Baca refused to do so. After threats from the cowboys, Baca took refuge in the house of Geronimo Armijo. A standoff with the cowboys ensued and a gang of 80 cowhands attacked the house. The story has it that the cowboys fired more than 4,000 rounds into the house until the house looked like Swiss cheese. Incrediby, not one of the rounds hit Baca. During the siege Baca killed four of the attackers and wounded eight others. After 36 hours, the attack ended when the cowboys ran out of ammunition. Baca walked out of the house unharmed.
In May
1885 Baca was charged with the murder of one of the cowboys who had attacked the cabin and he was jailed until his trial for murder. In August 1885 he was acquitted after the door of Armijo's house was entered as evidence. It had over 400 bullet holes in it.
After he officially became the sheriff of Socorro County, indictments were handed down for the arrests of many of the county's criminals. When his deputies began to arm themselves, Baca stopped their pursuit of lawbreakers. Instead, he sent a letter to each of the accused, saying, "I have a warrant here for your arrest. Please come in by March 15 and give yourself up. If you don't, I'll know you intend to resist arrest, and I will feel justified in shooting you on sight when I come after you." Most of the outlaws turned themselves in voluntarily.
In
1888, Baca became a
U.S. Marshal. He served for two years and then began studying law. In December 1894, he was admitted to the bar and joined a Socorro law firm. He practiced law on San Antonio Street in
El Paso from 1902–1904.
Baca held a succession of public offices, including county clerk, mayor and school superintendent of Socorro, and district attorney for Socorro and Sierra counties. In his book
The Shooters, Leon Metz writes that "most reports say he was the best peace officer Socorro ever had."
From 1913 to 1916 he served as the official representative in the U.S. of
Victoriano Huerta government during the
Mexican Revolution, a post which earned Baca an
indictment for criminal conspiracy when Mexican general José Inés Salazar escaped from prison. Defended successfully in court by the New Mexican lawyer and politician
Octaviano Larrazolo, Baca's reputation grew among Southwestern residents.
Baca unsuccessfully ran for
Congress as a Republican when New Mexico became a state in
1912, and he remained thereafter a valued political operative known for his ability to turn out the vote among the
Latino population. Working at times as a private detective, he also took a job as a bouncer in a
Ciudad Juárez casino. In the public arena, Baca worked closely with New Mexico's longtime Senator
Bronson Cutting as a political investigator and wrote a weekly column in Spanish that praised Cutting's work on behalf of local Latinos. Baca contemplated his own run for governor despite his declining health, but he failed to secure the Democratic Party's nomination for district attorney in
1944.
Metz also writes, "Elfego was, and is, controversial. He drank too much; talked too much ... he had a weakness for wild women; he was often arrogant and, of course, he showed no compunction about killing people." On his 75th birthday, Baca told the
Albuquerque Tribune that he had defended 30 people charged with murder, and only one went to the penitentiary.
In July,
1936, several years before his death, Janet Smith conducted an interview with Elfego Baca. Her notes can be found at the
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection. During the interview Baca said, "I never wanted to kill anybody, but if a man had it in his mind to kill me, I made it my business to get him first."
Many legends surround the life of Elfego Baca. One legend concerns his mother, Juanita. As the story goes, his mother, while pregnant with Elfego, was playing a softball game known as
Las Iglesias. When she went up for a fly ball, out came Elfego and entered the game.
Another legend says that Baca stole a gun from
Pancho Villa and Villa put a price of $30,000 on Baca's head but the reward was never collected.
Elfego Baca lived a remarkable life, legends notwithstanding. Although he died quietly in his bed in
1945 at age 80, he had more brushes with death than most men of his time. In
1958, Walt Disney released a television miniseries titled
The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca and starring Robert Loggia in the title role. Episodes of the series were later edited into a movie titled
Elfego Baca: Six Gun Law, which was released in
1962.
Baca Family of New Mexico*
UltimateDisney.com's Show/DVD Review of Elfego Baca*
:Tribute to Elfego Baca in the U.S. House of Representatives, May 10, 1995*
Interview with Elfego (Library of Congress)
