Las Vegas KOA New Mexico

10/09/2026

10/07/2026

He sat in church every Sunday. He never drank or smoked. And he killed men for money.

Deacon Jim Miller claimed 51 kills, but the records only prove about a dozen. The story goes he wore a steel plate under his coat. Some historians think he killed Pat Garrett too, but nobody ever proved it.

When a mob dragged him into a barn in 1909, he asked for his black hat. What do you think? Did he do it?

Follow for more outlaws of the Old West.

10/06/2026

Part 18. On July 14th, 1881, Deluvina Maxwell walked into the room where Billy the Kid lay dead. For decades she told a different story than Pat Garrett did. Follow for more, and camp with us at KOA Las Vegas, New Mexico.

10/05/2026

Part 17. In 1889, masked riders in Las Vegas, New Mexico tore down the fences that blocked the town’s land. Then the men said to lead them ran for office and won. Follow for more, and camp with us at KOA Las Vegas, New Mexico.

10/04/2026

Part 16. They say a New Mexico town hanged a 19 year old girl twice in one day.

Her name was Paula Angel. In 1861 she was sentenced to death in Las Vegas, New Mexico for stabbing her lover. The sheriff didn’t build a gallows. As the story goes, she grabbed the rope, the crowd cut her loose, and then they hanged her again.

Follow for more, because Part 17 is just as wild. And if you’re ever driving the Santa Fe Trail, camp with us at KOA Las Vegas, New Mexico.

koa.com/campgrounds/las-vegas-new-mexico
76 County Road A25A, Las Vegas, NM 87701
Info: 1-505-454-0180
Reservations: 1-800-562-3423

10/03/2026

Part 15. Albuquerque once hanged its own marshal. And the man who had to pull the lever was the sheriff who gave him the badge.

Milton Yarberry became the town’s first marshal in 1880. Two shootings later, a jury found him guilty, and on February 9, 1883, he was hanged. They buried him with the rope still around his neck. Was he a killer, or a man the town needed to blame? You decide.

Follow for more, because Part 16 is just as wild. And if you’re ever driving the Santa Fe Trail, camp with us at KOA Las Vegas, New Mexico.

koa.com/campgrounds/las-vegas-new-mexico
76 County Road A25A, Las Vegas, NM 87701
Info: 1-505-454-0180
Reservations: 1-800-562-3423

10/02/2026

Part 14. A city marshal sits in a jail cell, waiting to hang. And the man who tries to save him is an outlaw he once arrested.

In 1880, John Joshua Webb kept the law in Las Vegas, New Mexico. After a deadly shooting in a saloon, he was charged with murder and sentenced to hang. His friend Dave Rudabaugh tried to break him out, then ended up in the same jail with him. What happened next took two jailbreak attempts and a hole in the wall about seven inches by nineteen.

Follow for more, because Part 15 is just as wild. And if you’re ever driving the Santa Fe Trail, camp with us at KOA Las Vegas, New Mexico.

koa.com/campgrounds/las-vegas-new-mexico
76 County Road A25A, Las Vegas, NM 87701
Info: 1-505-454-0180
Reservations: 1-800-562-3423

10/01/2026

Part 13. A woman runs twelve miles through the New Mexico mountains in the dark. She’s running from her husband.

In 1870, the story goes, a man named Charles Kennedy kept a cabin on the trail out of the gold camp of Elizabethtown, and some of the travelers who stopped there for the night never left. For three years his wife said nothing. Then she ran to town and told everyone. What happened next ended with a mob, Clay Allison, and a head on a pole.

Was it justice, or was it just a mob? Tell us in the comments.

Follow for more, because Part fourteen is just as wild.

koa.com/campgrounds/las-vegas-new-mexico
76 County Road A25A, Las Vegas, NM 87701
Info: 1-505-454-0180
Reservations: 1-800-562-3423

10/01/2026

Nobody talks about the windmill in New Mexico that was used to hang men.

In January 1880, four drunk cowboys shot the Las Vegas town marshal, Joe Carson, dead. On the night of February 8th, a mob pulled three prisoners out of the jail and marched them to the windmill in the plaza. The story goes that Joe Carson’s widow was standing in that crowd with a pistol.

The windmill is gone now, and the plaza is a quiet little park. But in 1880, it was the most feared spot in the territory.

Follow for more, because Part 13 is even darker.

09/30/2026

They called him Mysterious Dave for a reason. Dave Mather showed up in Las Vegas, New Mexico in 1879 as a lawman for Hoodoo Brown, a justice of the peace who ran the town like a racket. When drunk cowboys killed marshal Joe Carson in a dance hall, Mather shot back and killed one of them on the spot. A mob dragged the rest from the jail, and one ended up hanging from the plaza windmill. Mather later killed another lawman in Dodge City, walked out of court a free man, and then simply disappeared. No confirmed grave has ever been found.

Part of the Killers of the Old West series. Follow for more true stories from the frontier.