La Posta De Mesilla – Mesilla, New Mexico
If only walls could talk, you’d want the adobe brick walls at La Posta (The Inn) to recount their impressions of the veritable “who’s who” of Western history who once sought shelter within its fortified walls. You’d want those walls to reveal their thoughts of legendary outlaw Billy the Kid who hung out at La Posta on his road to notoriety. You’d want those walls to tell you about the steely presence of General Douglas MacArthur, who commanded Allied forces in the Pacific Theater during World War II. You’d want those walls to share their account of Generalissimo Pancho Villa, another sojourner who sought shelter at La Posta. Certainly no raconteur could provide the details known only to the walls at La Posta when it quartered controversial frontiersman Kit Carson or for then General, later President, Ulysses S. Grant. Built in the 1840s by Sam and Roy Bean, themselves historical luminaries, La Posta was originally a freight and passenger service. After the Civil War, it became part of the Butterfield Stagecoach line which ferried passengers and mail from eastern outposts in Memphis and St. Louis to California. During the 1870s and 1880s, the sprawling edifice was home to the Corn…