Here is J.J. Webb, shackled in the center of the photo, next to his jailers, inside the Old Town Jail. Moving left from Webb there is a man faded, to his left is Hilario Romero and then Trinidad Romero, who became sheriff and probate judge, respectively. To Trinidad's left is probably Desiderio Romero who was the old sheriff of Old Town, and was Miguel Romero's nephew.
On the night of March 2,1880, Dave Rudabaugh and John Allen burst through the Sheriff's office to this placita outside the stone cell blocks, killing jailor Antonio Lino to free Webb. Webb stayed, while Rudabaugh, once a deputy himself, skipped town and joined up with Billy the Kid and his gang. Eventually, Rudabaugh ended up in the Old Town Jail again, when on December 3, 1881, he, Webb and five others chipped a stone out of the jail wall, and escaped out of a hole 7x 19 inches.
They were some of the few who escaped the justice of the Vigilantes in those days. It was Hilario Romero with fifteen armed deputies, who fired into a crowd of Vigilantes in 1883, that ended the citizens' attempts to control their wild frontier town. The Jail was removed part by part over time.
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