Elfego Baca was a colorful, real-life character of the Old West - The Old West had a lot of characters, but with the exception of Pancho Villa, we don’t know that much about Hispanic individuals.

Elfego Baca was born in 1865 in Socorro, N.M. His father was an Anglo who moved his family to Topeka, Kan., where for 15 years Elfego grew up in a largely English-speaking community. So Elfego grew up speaking Spanish fairly fluently, but almost perfect English.

In 1880, when Elfego was around 15, a dark blond, with good looks and lots of confidence, his family moved back to New Mexico.

And the rowdy one at this time was not Elfego, but his father. A story is told that he shot and killed two cowboys and was sentenced to a rather lengthy term in the Los Lunas jail. But a year later, in 1881, Elfego broke his father out of jail.”*

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