History of "Billy the Kid" (Historians of the Frontier and American West)

Reprinted only once since its first publication in 1920, the History of Billy the Kid is the rarest book on the New Mexico gunfighter. Born in Texas in 1855, Siringo was a cowboy, Pinkerton detective, western writer, and Hollywood advisor until his death in 1928, and crossed the Kids path once or twice in the Texas Panhandle and New Mexico. His account incorporates some inaccuracies but offers genuine historical nuggets such as cowboy Jim Easts eyewitness account of the Kids capture by Pat Garrett at Stinking Spring. Enormously popular at the turn of the century, Siringo single-handedly kept Billy the Kids flame alive until the 1920s. Historian Frederick Nolan discusses the place of Siringos account in Billy the Kid literature.