The West's First Preservationist Will Surprise You

His name is famous for other notorious ous things, but don’t overlook this.

- JANA BOMMERSBACH

In Lincoln County, New Mexico, the name John Tunstall is as famous as his hired gun, Billy the Kid.

His ambition, his capitalistic competition, his cattle, his murder—the historical shorthand for all that is the Lincoln County War.

But there’s one other title Tunstall deserves— one that’s particularly significant these days. When the 21-year-old Englishman came to town in 1876 and looked around for a place to set up his mercantile, he found an adobe already a quarter-century old, restoring part of it as he expanded the property.

That makes John Tunstall perhaps the nation’s first Old West preservationist.