Festivals in Hico
The Billy the Kid Museum in Hico, Texas is proud to present the First Annual Billy The Kid Old West Festival, scheduled for June 10-11, 2022. The Festival’s mission is to teach and preserve history while giving artists, performers, reenactors, visitors, and residents a place to come together and appreciate the Old West and to learn and share what it was like to live in those historic times.
And we’re not just talking about a stand-off in the wild west. You’ll hear about all sorts of characters who went against the grain, outside the boundaries, who faced challenges. And not just the bad guys… you’ll experience the good, the bad, and the ugly with gunfights, music, poetry, art, and conversation.
Robert Dean and Sue Land from the museum are experienced at holding events. Not only do the artists, performers and town folks have fun at and enjoy them, but they bring visitors and tourists from far and wide.
Robert and Sue’s first experience at doing a festival was in 2015 when they co-directed the first Billy the Kid Film Festival in Hico. The Festival presented films from around the world, films that had a distinctly Texas flavor to them, all of which engaged, entertained, and surprised audiences. To say it was a success is understating the facts.
For this upcoming Festival and future events we are fortunate to have a community of reenactors available in the area to perform the historic skits which look to be amazing.
The Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District is being revitalized, having been revamped into a modern shopping and business center. The historic reenactors that performed there for years understand the value of preserving history and some are now looking for new locations for their shows. Hico is a historic Old West town and the reenactors are pleased with what we have to offer here, and you’ll see plenty of them in action at the Festival.
We are confident of out-doing that first festival, so come on down or up from whichever direction you are traveling, we are looking forward to your visit. We guarantee it will be entertaining, educational, and just flat out fun!
The True Story
Daniel Edwards with Sue Land
An interview about Daniel’s book chronicling the true story of Billy The Kid and his links to Hico, Texas. The book is titled “Billy The Kid An Autobiography … The Kid’s Identity Revealed!”
Billy the Kid in Hico, Texas
“When you ask people what are they doing in Hico, Texas they will tell you it’s because of the Billy the Kid museum,” says Sue Land, Director of the museum.
"People always ask, ‘Where did he die?’ ” says Land. Fortunately for museum visitors, Billy dropped dead just around the corner, "right there behind our Mexican food restaurant." It happened on December 27, 1950.
At the time, Billy was using the alias "Brushy Bill" Roberts, and was four days shy of his 91st birthday. The formerly feared Wild West outlaw was walking to the post office to mail a package for his wife.
Some folks don't believe that Brushy Bill was Billy the Kid -- but you'd have a hard time finding them in Hico. Still, the town has had mixed feelings about marking his death spot. For years it was outlined with a chalk body outline on the sidewalk where he fell, but the outline has weathered to the point of near-invisibility. "The older citizens didn't really like it a whole lot," says Land, but she hopes that the town will restore it.
The legend goes Billy the Kid was a wild outlaw, an escape artist and a murderer before the age of 21. The state of New Mexico claims the western legend died in a shootout with a town sheriff named Pat Garrett in the late 1800s. A grave and museum in Fort Sumner, New Mexico serves as their proof the legend is true.
But Hico believes a different story about what really happened to Billy the Kid the night Sheriff Pat Garrett claimed to have killed him.
“He shot and killed a young man by the name of Billy Barlow who had a beard who had a dark complexion plus the deputy marshal there that night that told Pat Garrett that he killed the wrong man and he filed a report stating that nobody bothered to look at,”says Land. “No he was not killed. He was wounded and he did escape. He made his way with the help of some of the town people to a sheep herders camp where he recuperated until he was ready to travel.”
Land says historians and researchers have tracked Billy the Kid’s travel to Mexico and his return to Texas in the early 1900s when he finally settled in Hico for 17 years.
“He never told anybody who he was until 1950 when a detective named Morrison from Florida came looking for him because he had been told this was Billy the Kid and this is where he lived in Hico Texas, went by the name of Brushy Bill, William Henry Roberts,” says Land.
“He showed up here looking for Brushy and Brushy refused to talk to him until the third time and then he agreed to talk and tell him his story and how he wanted his pardon that he felt like had been promised to him back in the 1800s by the governor of New Mexico and he needed Morrison’s help to prove it. Morrison set out to prove one way or the other Brushy Bill was or was not Billy the Kid and to his satisfaction he proved it,” says Land.
Land says scars and marks on Brushy Bill’s body matched those of Billy the Kid but even after a trip to New Mexico to prove who he was, no one believed him.
“The Governor wouldn’t look at any of the evidence or anything and just claimed that Billy was a sick old man and Billy was sent home and a few days later he died. He had a heart attack here on the street here in Hico,” says Land.
In recent years, new historians have taken an interest in the Brushy Bill theory. According to the Billy the Kid Museum in Hico, many believe the story but proving it is nearly impossible.
“Now the historians are saying okay we will change history. We will state that Pat Garret did not kill Billy the Kid but we will not say that William Henry Roberts known as Brushy Bill was Billy because you need a DNA,” says Land. “We could take a DNA from Brushy’s bones but there is no living descendant so it wouldn’t do any good. You can never prove that.”
Even without solid proof, Hico has become a tourist attraction for thousands of visitors from all over the world. The Billy the Kid Museum has become the main attraction in town. Land says there is a certain fascination with the legendary outlaw’s life.
“They are rooting for that 14-year old boy to have made it out of New Mexico and made a life for himself and they really enjoy hearing our side of the story,” says Land. “He was a vision of what every young man wanted to be. Wild and free. If they’ve gone to New Mexico first, they come here and they end up saying we like your story better. Or they come here and say now we’re going to go hear New Mexico and we tell them don’t tell them you’ve been to Hico, you might get run out of town.”
It may never be proven whether or not Brushy Bill was Billy the Kid but Land says they don’t need it. The story is enough.
“We don’t need any more proof. New Mexico does. They don’t like us a whole lot but that’s okay we don’t care,” says Land.