Est. 1874 · Operating Lincoln Hotel Since 1874 · Once Owned by Sheriff Pat Garrett · Where Deputy Bob Olinger Took His Last Meal (April 28, 1881) · Reconstructed After Fire; Within the Lincoln Historic District
The Wortley Hotel opened in Lincoln in 1874, near the center of the village's single main street, and has provided meals and lodging to the people passing through the county seat — judges, lawyers, lawmen, ranchers — for a century and a half. At one point the property was owned by Pat Garrett, the Lincoln County sheriff who would kill Billy the Kid at Fort Sumner in July 1881.
The hotel's place in the Billy the Kid story is fixed to a single morning. On April 28, 1881, the Kid was being held in the courthouse across the street, awaiting hanging. Deputy Bob Olinger had walked over to the Wortley for a meal when he heard a shotgun blast. The Kid had killed the other guard, Deputy James Bell, on the courthouse staircase, taken Olinger's own shotgun, and fired on Olinger from a window as he hurried back. Olinger died in the street. The Wortley is remembered as the place where Olinger took his last meal.
The original Wortley building was lost to fire and later reconstructed on the site in keeping with its 19th-century character. Today it operates as a seasonal inn with five period rooms, each with a private entrance and working fireplace and a home-cooked breakfast included in the stay. The hotel traditionally opens for the season on April 28 each year — the anniversary of the Kid's escape — and closes at the end of October. It stands within the Lincoln Historic District, a few steps from the courthouse and the Tunstall Store.
Sources
- https://www.nightsinthepast.com/wortley-hotel-lincoln.html
- https://www.legendsofamerica.com/nm-lincoln/
- https://www.newmexico.org/listing/the-wortley-hotel/2525/
Apparition of a young woman at the foot of the bedA figure appearing solid and unresponsive
The Wortley's ghost story belongs to Room 3 and to a figure the accounts call Lilia. She is described as a young Hispanic woman in clothing of the early 20th century, taken to be a housemaid from the hotel's earlier decades. Guests who report her say she appears at the foot of the bed, looking entirely solid rather than translucent, and that she does not respond when spoken to before she is gone.
The consistency of the description — a maid, period dress, Room 3, the foot of the bed, no interaction — is what carries the story across the regional sources that collect New Mexico hauntings. It is a quiet account, free of the violence that defines so much of Lincoln's history; Lilia is presented as a remnant of the hotel's working life rather than of the Lincoln County War.
That contrast is part of the appeal. The Wortley sits a few steps from the courthouse where two deputies died in 1881, and it carries the weight of Pat Garrett's ownership and Olinger's last meal. Yet its resident ghost is not a gunfighter or a lawman but a housemaid going about her rounds. The hotel's seasonal operation and small size make it a place where the story is told guest to guest more than investigated.
Notable Entities
Lilia (Room 3 housemaid)
Where this legend is told
