DUANE
Duane's take
The way I hear it told, this one comes straight off the official marker for the Old County Jail in San Elizario, El Paso County — and it's worth every word. Now, adobe bricks — sun-dried mud and reeds — and cottonwood logs don't sound like the stuff of legend. But around 1850, somebody stacked them up around steel cell blocks and built a structure that would serve as the official county jail for El Paso County in two separate stretches: 1850 to 1866, and again 1868 to 1873.
That's because San Elizario was the county seat — first the first one, then the third one. The place had a habit of coming back into its own. And this wasn't just a jail.
Under the same adobe roof, you had the carcel — that's Spanish for jail — and the juzgado, the courtroom. Law and confinement sharing walls, which if you think about it is either very efficient or very ominous, depending on which side of the proceedings you found yourself on. Now here's where the story takes a turn.
According to legend, only one man ever escaped from this jail. Just one, in all those years. And he didn't do it alone.
The man who allegedly freed him was none other than William Bonney — the outlaw the whole country came to know as Billy the Kid. The man he pulled out? His cohort, one Melquiades Seguro.
One escape. One jail. One man who would become maybe the most famed outlaw in the American West, doing the freeing.
Some buildings hold their history quiet. This one's been holdin' that story in its mud-brick walls for a long, long time.
What the marker says
This structure was built about 1850 of adobe bricks (sun-dried mud and reeds) and cottonwood logs around steel cell blocks. It served as official county jail 1850-66 and 1868-73, when San Elizario was the first and then third El Paso county seat. It housed both jail ("carcel" in Spanish) and courtroom ("juzgado"). According to legend, William Bonney, famed outlaw Billy the Kid, freed the only man ever to escape from this jail, his cohort Melquiades Seguro. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1970