photo #4676595

The Texas Quote of the Day:"[Billy the Kid] was only a boy. You'd never think he would kill anyone. He was good looking, with a smooth face, his hair was brown and wavy; his eyes were clear blue. The only thing about him that wasn't attractive, you might say, were two of his upper front teeth, one on each side, they were longer than the others and protruded a little. He was the best-natured kid and had the most pleasant smile I most ever saw in a young man, and I've heard from men who saw him do it that he often wore that smile when he killed. At other times, so they told me, he had an awful look in his face when he killed a man. They say he had killed twenty-one men when Pat Garrett killed him, and the Kid was only 21 years old, so he killed a man for every year of his life. I used to see the Kid often here and he and I became well acquainted. He was always heavily armed, but that wasn't unusual in those days; everyone went around with two heavy six shooters sagging from his belt. The Kid always had a gang with him, bad men they were; but they behaved here. They had to; our boys wouldn't have stood for any funny business. We all knew of course, that Billy the Kid and his gang were bandits and horse and cattle thieves and killers, but they came here with horses to sell, and our cattlemen needed horses. We knew those horses had been stolen over in New Mexico, so we didn't care." ----- Ms. Frenchy McCormick, a onetime saloon faro dealer and the last resident of old Tascosa, Texas, interviewed in the Kansas City Star, December, 1930. Frenchy saw the town of Tascosa grow from nothing to 500 and then die until she was the only one left in 1931. Billy the Kid lived in Tascosa for a year and a half. This photo of Frenchy is circa 1885.