gunmen for control of the county. One of the major events in the war took place in the village of Lincoln itself, when forces supporting Sheriff George W. Peppin besieged the house of merchant Alexander McSween over several days while soldiers from nearby Fort Stanton stood by. McSween was killed by gunfire, but a number of his supporters, known as "regulators," escaped, led from the burning building by a young tough named William Bonney, later known as the famous gunfighter Billy the Kid. The violence continued until early 1879, when Federal troops arrived to support local law enforcement in returning the area to the rule of law. Guadalupe Ranger District Part of a rugged and remote landscape of mountains and ridges, the 288,540 acre Guadalupe Ranger District begins at the Texas and New Mexico border and follows the spine of the Guadalupe Mountains northwest for nearly 50 miles. Originally established on April 19, 1907, as the Guadalupe National Forest, with its headquarters in Carlsbad, the area became part of the newly created Alamo National Forest in July 1908, as the Carson Seep Ranger District. When the Alamo was disestablished in June 1917, the Guadalupe area became part of the Lincoln National Forest, where it was re-designated the Guadalupe Ranger District. The district is part of the Guadalupe Mountain range, an exposed area of the Capitan Reef, a Permian-era (251 to 299 million years ago) barrier that partially encircled the Delaware Sea, a 150 mile long and 75 mile wide sea to the south and east. Running north-northwest from the more famous Guadalupe and El Capitan peaks on the Texas side of the border, the Guadalupe Ranger District forms the back reef of the northernmost section of the Capitan Reef. Ranging in elevation from 7500' in the south to 3500' in the north, the district begins at the Texas-New border in a series of steeply-walled canyons before gradually changing into rolling hills and small canyons that run east into the valley of the Pecos River. Lookout towers Given the importance of fire prevention and fire fighting in the heavily forested areas of the Lincoln National Forest it is not surprising that there have been a number of fire lookout towers constructed on forest lands. Of the sixteen fire lookout structures once in the forest, 9 are still extant, and six of those are listed on the National Register of Historic Places