Doc45 Publications
When New Mexico Was Young – Harry H Bailey His Autobiography
When New Mexico Was Young: His Autobiography
By Harry. H. Bailey (Author), Homer E. Gruver (Editor)
A firsthand account of New Mexico’s transformation from frontier territory to the modern Southwest.
When New Mexico Was Young is the autobiography of Harry H. Bailey (1868-1954), a pioneer businessman, horticulturist, builder, preservationist, and developer who played an important role in the growth of the Mesilla Valley, El Paso, and southern New Mexico.
Bailey established the Mesilla Valley’s first nursery and supplied the first trees planted at New Mexico State College, now New Mexico State University. In El Paso, he built the Natatorium, the city’s first public swimming pool, in 1900. Three years later, he constructed the Angelus Hotel, part of which became the Crawford Theatre in 1906.
After returning to New Mexico, he helped develop Radium Springs as a health resort and built its hotel and bathhouse. Recognizing the historical importance of Fort Seldon, he purchased its decaying adobe buildings to preserve one of New Mexico’s most significant frontier landmarks for future generations.
Yet this is far more than the story of one man’s accomplishments. Bailey’s memoir preserves vivid recollections of the people, places, and events that shaped southern New Mexico during the closing years of the frontier.
Among the men he knew were Sheriff Pat Garrett, Colonel Albert J. Fountain, attorney and future senator Albert B. Fall, Oliver Milton Lee, Sheriff Mariano Barela, Demetrio Chavez, Humbolt Casad, and George Griggs. He was also a close friend of celebrated Western author Eugene Manlove Rhodes.
For several months, Bailey lived in the historic Mesilla courthouse where Billy the Kid was tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to hang. His stories of early settlers, local personalities, business ventures, frontier communities, and everyday life offer an intimate view of a region undergoing extraordinary change.
Part autobiography, part pioneer chronicle, and part social history, When New Mexico Was Young is an invaluable firsthand account of the Mesilla Valley, El Paso, Radium Springs, Fort Stanton, and the remarkable men and women who helped build the modern Southwest.
Essential reading for anyone interested in New Mexico history, El Paso history, Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Fort Stanton, Western pioneers, and the development of the American frontier.
Radium-Springs-Hotel-Radium-Springs-New-Mexico-1931
186 pages, 10 images.
Reprint of 1946 Edition.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1952580017
Buy When New Mexico Was Young: His Autobiography.
Dave Rudabaugh Border Ruffian
“Dave Rudabaugh, Border Ruffian
By F. Stanley
Dave Rudabaugh, one of the most intriguing characters of the American Wild West, is known today primarily for his association with Billy the Kid. He and Billy were apprehended on December 23, 1880, by Deputy Sheriff Pat Garrett. Rudabaugh was wanted by the law at the time for the killing of Antonio Valdez, a jailer in Las Vegas, New Mexico.
In this book, Stanley Francis Louis Crocchiola, writing under the pen name F. Stanley, recounts Rudabaugh’s life from his birth in Illinois in 1854 to his brutal death in Parral, Mexico, on February 18, 1886.
The event that first brought Rudabaugh to the attention of the public was a spectacular train robbery. On January 27, 1878, Rudabaugh with five armed companions held up the train at Kinsley, Kansas. Train robbing then was still a rare and shocking crime. The “sensational” Kinsley Train Robbery, as it was reported in the newspapers, was a fiasco – the robbery was so badly carried out that the “take” was nothing.
After he was caught, Rudabaugh confessed and turned “state’s evidence.” His testimony at the ensuing trial earned him his freedom and his fellow robbers jail sentences.
Asked to leave Kansas after the trial, Rudabaugh travelled to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and became a city policeman. His commitment to the enforcement side of the law lasted only 18 months. On August 14, 1879, Rudabaugh with two other Las Vegas policemen robbed the Tecolote stage four miles south of Las Vegas. Three innocent men were convicted of their crime.
On April 2, 1880, Rudabaugh and John J. Allen were visiting a friend in the Las Vegas jail when Allen shot and killed jailer Antonio Valdez. Both men fled after the shooting and were not caught by the posse that vigorously pursued them.
It was while on the run from that killing that Rudabaugh joined up with Billy the Kid.
Stanley details what happened to Rudabaugh after he was captured with Billy; his trial, conviction, and sentencing to death for Valdez’s killing; and his fortuitous escape. He also describes the events that led to Rudabaugh’s death and gristly beheading in Parral. The book includes two pictures of Rudabaugh’s severed head.
This is an updated, annotated edition of Stanley’s original publication with much added information, three new Appendices, and an Index.
174 Pages, 6 Images
Reprint of 1961 Edition.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-952580-12-3
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-952580-13-0
