Friday, October 03, 2014

The Secrets of The Pit Jail in Lincoln, New Mexico


October 3, 2014
   Now that everyone knows I'm at the Gallegos House, I have spent more time entertaining visitors than painting. Yesterday afternoon, this old scallawag, came in and loaded me up with wonderful lies and half-truths:


Steve Sederwall laying down the law

Then this guy showed up:

Buckeye Blake waxes eloquently and artistically about the Scorpion House.

   Last night I was able to whip out a little study of a certain Kid:


Daily Whipout: "Billy Looks Down"

Also, yesterday Ranger Gary Cozzins took me down to Phoebe Taylor's house to talk to her about her family and the old pit jail which is on her land:


Gary looks on as Phoebe points to the location of the Pit Jail, 30 feet north of her dad's well.

The Lincoln Pit Jail
"The Boys had been put in irons and lodged together with Lucas Gallegos and and Catarino Romero in the recently completed county jail. This was an adobe structure built by George Peppin; it comprised a house for the jailer, beneath which were were two log-lined underground rooms reached by means of a ladder lowered through a trapdoor. Because of the fetid conditions below ground, the shackled prisoners were taken outside once a day for exercise."
—Fred Nolan, The Lincoln County War, page 170

Drawings tomorrow.

"We were walking proud, talkin' loud and drawin' a crowd."
—Steve Sederwall