Everybody knows Billy the Kid; the legend of him, at least. The true story paints a different picture, bringing to life a young rustler with a devil-may-care attitude whose foray into the Lincoln County War was the only time in his young life that he fought on the right side of the law. In that manner, it’s ironic that, for all his banditry, it would be his faithful actions in defense of the Englishman John Tunstall that saw him hunted to the end of his natural life.

The Gadsden Purchase finished what the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo started. The old Spanish presidio at Tucson – known affectionately to locals as the “Old Pueblo” – was declared American territory on June 8, 1854. Few noticed.

There were only 500 citizens at the time, and a scant few were white. Most Americans looked at the dusty old presidio, situated a day’s ride north of the Mexico border and surrounded on all sides by as many mountain ranges as hostile Apache war bands, and saw only a sweatbox populated by too many undesirables to make it worth their while. A more learned sort saw that, for all the danger that life south of the Gadsden line offered, Arizona was a land of unspeakable promise.

30 rounds were fired in 30 seconds. So much black powder smoke filled the vacant lot and wafted into the street that some folks thought there was a fire. The screams of the wounded and dying mixed with the calls for help from bystanders. It was the most furious half-minute in the history of the Wild West, carving into the annals of western mythos the names of Doc and Wyatt.