Elfego Baca

ELFEGO BACA (1865–1945)


Elfego Baca led an adventure-filled life in the Wild West as a gun-fighting ruffian who eventually became one of New Mexico’s most fearless lawmen. The most popular story about him took place in 1884. At only 19 years of age, Elfego was widely known as one of the best gunfighters in the territory. Although he sometimes found himself at odds with the law, his deepest desire was to be a lawman. When Elfego learned that several drunken cowboys were terrorizing the local Mexican townspeople of Frisco (now Reserve), he stole some guns, purchased a mail-order sheriff’s badge, “persuaded” a justice of the peace to deputize him, and made the 130-mile trek south, determined to bring about justice.

After arresting and jailing one of the cowboys, Elfego was confronted by eighty bloodthirsty ranch hands bent on revenge. They fired on the jail and backed the young sheriff into a jacal. A flurry of gunfire ensued, but the bold Elfego held off his attackers for more than thirty hours and was said to have killed four and wounded six without receiving a scratch. When the cowboys later tried to have him hanged for murder, he produced the bullet-riddled door of the shack and was acquitted. He subsequently became sheriff of Socorro County and held a succession of public offices. His adventures–real and imagined alike–inspired a Disney series called Elfego Baca and a 1962 movie, Elfego Baca: Six Gun Law, featuring Robert Loggia as Elfego and introducing Annette Funicello.

Elfego Baca