José Chávez y Chávez is probably one of the most interesting characters of New Mexico's wild and wooly days. He was active in both the Pecos River area of New Mexico and the Rio Grande. His haunts ranged from Lincoln to Las Vegas. He eventually wound up in the western Guadalupe county village of Milagro where he lived out his life. He was a contemporary and friends with two of New Mexico's most notorious outlaws---Billy the Kid and Vicente Silva. He was also known to Pat Garrett and Elfego Baca, two of New Mexico's most famous lawmen. He probably also met and worked with Bob Ford, who had gained his notoriety as the slayer of Jesse James. Chávez y Chávez straddled the line between being an outlaw and being a lawman. His activities caught the attention of several governors of the territory of New Mexico beginning with Lew Wallace. Chávez y Chávez was a Lincoln county Regulator during the time period the former Civil War general was New Mexico's territorial governor. Governor Miguel Otero refused to sign a death order for him and instead commuted his sentence to life in prison. He was paroled by Governor George Curry in 1909. Born in the early days of the Territory of New Mexico, he died of natural causes in 1923 eleven years after New Mexico became a state. His death was completely unlike the deaths of most other Wild West desperadoes who died with their boots on. He is buried in an unmarked grave in an obscure and forgotten cemetery in the extreme western part of Guadalupe County, just south of Interstate 40. His unusual repetitive surname was a result of his taking both his father's and his mother's surnames. It was a common practice in New Mexico's territorial times to do that to differentiate from others who may have had the same first name and surname. In his case, both José and Chávez are quite common Hispanic, Spanish or Mexican, surnames (very similar to a John Smith with the non-Hispanic culture). Having the surname Chávez y Chávez distinguished him from the countless other Nuevo Mexicanos named José Chávez.