Elfego Baca

Elfego Baca (1865–1945) was a legendary lawman, lawyer, and politician in the closing days of the American wild west.

Political Life

Baca held a succession of public offices, including county clerk, mayor and school superintendent of Socorro, and district attorney for Socorro and Sierra counties. In his book The Shooters, Leon Metz writes that “most reports say he was the best peace officer Socorro ever had.”

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From 1913 to 1916 he served as the official representative in the U.S. of Victoriano Huerta government during the Mexican Revolution, a post which earned Baca an indictment for criminal conspiracy when Mexican general José Inés Salazar escaped from prison. Defended successfully in court by the New Mexican lawyer and politician Octaviano Larrazolo, Baca's reputation grew among Southwestern residents.

Related Topics:
Victoriano Huerta - Mexican Revolution - Indictment - Octaviano Larrazolo

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Baca unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican when New Mexico became a state in 1912, and he remained thereafter a valued political operative known for his ability to turn out the vote among the Latino population. Working at times as a private detective, he also took a job as a bouncer in a Ciudad Juárez casino. In the public arena, Baca worked closely with New Mexico’s longtime Senator Bronson Cutting as a political investigator and wrote a weekly column in Spanish that praised Cutting’s work on behalf of local Latinos. Baca contemplated his own run for governor despite his declining health, but he failed to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for district attorney in 1944.

Related Topics:
Congress - 1912 - Latino - Ciudad Juárez - Bronson Cutting - 1944

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Metz also writes, “Elfego was, and is, controversial. He drank too much; talked too much ... he had a weakness for wild women; he was often arrogant and, of course, he showed no compulsion about killing people.” On his 75th birthday, Baca told the Albuquerque Tribune that he had defended 30 people charged with murder, and only one went to the penitentiary.

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In July, 1936, several years before his death, Janet Smith conducted an interview with Elfego Baca. Her notes can be found at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection. During the interview Baca said, “I never wanted to kill anybody, but if a man had it in his mind to kill me, I made it my business to get him first.”

Related Topics:
1936 - Library of Congress

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