HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
The frozen-in-time general store of John Tunstall, whose 1878 murder lit the Lincoln County War — visitors report footsteps among the original 19th-century stock
US-380, Lincoln, NM 88338
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Admission to the Lincoln Historic Site (which includes the Tunstall Store) is $7; free for New Mexico residents and children under 16. See nmhistoricsites.org for current pricing and hours.
Access
Limited Access
Historic adobe store building with original wood floors and narrow aisles between display cases
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1877 · John Tunstall's General Store — Challenge to the Murphy-Dolan Monopoly · February 18, 1878 — Tunstall's Murder Ignited the Lincoln County War · Preserved Original 19th-Century Merchandise · New Mexico State Historic Site
John Henry Tunstall was a 24-year-old Englishman when he came to Lincoln County and, in 1877, opened a general store with the lawyer Alexander McSween and the backing of cattleman John Chisum. The store, on Lincoln's single main street, was a direct challenge to the firm of L.G. Murphy & Co. and its successor J.J. Dolan, which had controlled credit, supply, and county contracts. The building housed the store, McSween's law office, and the offices of a small bank.
The rivalry turned deadly quickly. In February 1878, the Murphy-Dolan faction obtained a court order to seize some of Tunstall's horses against a disputed debt. Sheriff William Brady sent a posse. On February 18, 1878, members of that posse caught Tunstall on the road and shot him in the head. He was 24 years old.
Tunstall's killing is the event historians mark as the start of the Lincoln County War. His ranch hands, including a young William H. Bonney — Billy the Kid — organized as the Regulators and set out to avenge him, and the cycle of killings that followed consumed Lincoln County through 1878. From the corral wall at the east end of this building, Regulators later ambushed and killed Sheriff Brady.
The store passed into the historical record largely intact. Today it is one of the structures within the Lincoln Historic Site, operated by New Mexico Historic Sites. Its shelves and cases still hold much of the original late-19th-century stock, and rangers interpret it as both a working frontier store and the place where one man's commercial ambition set off a war.
Sources
The Tunstall Store is not a heavily reported haunt, but it appears in Lincoln's ghost-tour repertoire for one recurring claim: footsteps. Visitors and the guides who lead tours of the historic village describe hearing footsteps inside the store with no visible source, moving among the original shelving and cases.
Pearl Tippen, who has run ghost tours in Lincoln, is among those who recount the footstep reports at the Tunstall Store. The accounts are the quiet kind — no apparitions, no dramatic phenomena, just the sound of someone walking in an empty room kept exactly as it was more than a century ago.
The building's history gives the story its weight. This is the store John Tunstall built and the business whose collapse and whose owner's murder set off the Lincoln County War. Whether the footsteps mean anything is left to the visitor; the state historic site presents the Tunstall Store as a preserved 19th-century interior, and the ghost stories travel with the town's larger Billy the Kid lore rather than as a standalone investigation site.
Notable Entities
The Tunstall Store is one of the buildings within the state-run Lincoln Historic Site. It preserves much of its original 19th-century merchandise in the original shelving and display cases — bolts of cloth, hardware, and dry goods left as the store stood. Self-guided and ranger-supported visits cover the store's role as John Tunstall's business and the spark point of the Lincoln County War.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Roswell, NM
New Mexico Military Institute was founded in 1891 by Colonel Robert S. Goss and Captain Joseph C. Lea as the Goss Military Institute, initially enrolling 38 students. Recognized by the territorial legislature and renamed NMMI in 1893, it faced closure in 1895 but reopened in 1898 after James Hagerman donated 40 acres of land. Today it enrolls approximately 1,000 cadets at both high school and junior college levels.
Santa Fe, NM
The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi was built in Santa Fe between 1869 and 1886 by Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy, in a Romanesque Revival style, around and then replacing the older adobe parish church of La Parroquia. It holds a crucifix that survived the fire set during the 1980 New Mexico State Penitentiary riot.
Santa Fe, NM
Loretto Chapel was built in Santa Fe beginning in 1873 and completed in 1878 in a Gothic Revival style for the Sisters of Loretto. It is best known for its helix-shaped 'Miraculous Staircase,' which rises to the choir loft in two full turns with no central support. The chapel is now a privately operated museum and event venue.