The Untold Story of Ash Upson, the Man Who Invented Billy the Kid. Beyond the Myth of the Legend

Ash Upson is an unsung hero of the American West. He’s not the sort of hero who carried a gun or committed the same daring deeds of Pat Garrett or Billy the Kid. As far as we know, he didn’t even fire a shot during the entirety of the Lincoln County War. But Ash is a hero, nonetheless, whose weapon was the pen, his heroic deed being the preservation of our history during a time when people took it for granted. While it’s true that Ash Upson has gone down in infamy to a degree for concocting fictitious tales in An Authentic Life of Billy the Kid, which he ghostwrote for Pat Garrett, he preserved a great deal of history via newspaper articles and letters to his family back east. Through these Ash left behind a wealth of information for modern day historians. Though Upson may have only been a supporting character in the drama of the American West, he is no less as mythic as his counterparts, Pat Garrett, John Chisum, and Billy the Kid.