On the Trail of Sheriff Pat Garrett
From Amarillo, Texas, to Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Categories: Renegade Roads
By: Johnny D. Boggs 01/01/2008
By the Rio Grande
That happened down in El Paso, the next stop on the Pat Garrett Trail.
Teddy appointed Pat customs collector in El Paso in 1901, which was approved in 1902, and Pat served until running into trouble in 1905. Pat and a notorious gambler pal posed in a group photo with the prez during a San Antonio Rough Riders’ reunion (see p. 37). The resulting bad PR cost Pat the friendship of Teddy and, eventually, Pat’s job.
El Paso is full of museums, Mexican food and Marty Robbins music, but you won’t find a whole lot dedicated to Pat. The customs house is long gone. So are the places Pat lived—the Sheldon Hotel and houses on Ange, Montana and West Olive—county historical commission chair Bernie Sargent tells me. And speaking
of Marty “El Paso” Robbins, he sang a ballad about Billy the Kid, not Pat. That’s what you’ll find often on the Pat Garrett Trail. Pat’s always in Billy’s shadow. It’s a Billy conspiracy!
With his career washed up (again) in El Paso, Pat returned to his ranch in New Mexico. Which is where most of us know Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett.
In 1880, Pat got the job of Lincoln County sheriff and the chance to bring Billy to justice. Maybe Pat and Billy were pals. They certainly knew each other during Pat’s earlier career pouring drinks as a bartender. But bosom buddies? It makes for good movies—okay, mediocre movies—but a deep friendship has never been historically linked to the two. They are definitely linked together in Lincoln.
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