Billy the Kid
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50 free Billy the Kid trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Billy the Kid rode as an outlaw for only about four years, yet he became the best-known gunslinger of the American frontier. Much of what people think they know about him comes from dime novels, newspapers and Hollywood, which makes the real story a rich source of surprises. These questions follow him from a hard childhood and his first brushes with the law, through the Lincoln County War, his daring jailbreaks and the manhunt that ended his life in New Mexico. They also cover the afterlife of the legend: the one authenticated portrait, the men who later claimed to be him, and the actors, musicians and writers who kept retelling his tale. The set is pitched for curious newcomers as well as Old West buffs. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so each question doubles as a fun fact you can pass on.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A disputed image bought in a memorabilia shop in 2010 may show Billy the Kid playing which genteel lawn game?
Croquet
Croquet is the game being played in the picture. If genuine, it would be the only image of the outlaw with his gang, but historians remain split on whether it shows him at all.
Q 02The long-held belief that Billy the Kid was left-handed came from which misleading source?
A tintype photograph
A tintype photograph made the outlaw look left-handed: the process produces mirror images, so the Colt that seems to hang on his left hip was really worn on his right.
Q 03The only authenticated portrait of Billy the Kid sold at a 2011 auction for roughly how much?
$2.3 million
$2.3 million was the winning bid from businessman William Koch. The 2-by-3-inch plate survived only because a friend of the outlaw kept it after his death.
Q 04Which Lincoln County sheriff shot Billy the Kid dead in a darkened room in July 1881?
Pat Garrett
Pat Garrett fired twice in the dark and hit the 21-year-old outlaw just above the heart. He later had a book ghostwritten to answer claims that he had ambushed his target.
Q 05Billy the Kid, the most famous outlaw of the New Mexico frontier, is believed to have been born where?
New York
New York is the birthplace most historians accept, in 1859. His widowed mother then took her two sons west through Indiana and Kansas before settling in New Mexico.
Q 06The governor who promised Billy the Kid a pardon, Lew Wallace, also wrote which bestselling novel?
Ben-Hur
Ben-Hur was completed in 1880 in the governor's palace in Santa Fe, and went on to become the best-selling American novel of the 19th century.
Q 07Billy the Kid's reported last words, asking who was there in the dark, were spoken in which language?
Spanish
Spanish was the language of his final question, which translates as "Who is it?". The lawman waiting in the dark knew the voice and fired before any answer came.
Q 08In which 1989 film do two slacker teenagers recruit Billy the Kid to help them pass a history class?
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure has the pair befriend the outlaw in the Wild West, then pick up Socrates in ancient Greece. Dan Shor played the gunslinger.
Q 09Which Brat Pack actor played Billy the Kid in the 1988 hit Young Guns and its 1990 sequel?
Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez talked his way into the lead: the director first wanted Kiefer Sutherland for the part. The film opened at number one at the US box office.
Q 10A 1966 low-budget horror western pits Billy the Kid against which classic monster, played by John Carradine?
Dracula
Dracula is the villain of the 1966 double-feature oddity, which Carradine counted as his least favourite of all the films he ever acted in.
Q 11Billy the Kid, who used the alias William H. Bonney, was born with which name?
Henry McCarty
Henry McCarty was his birth name, unknown to the public for decades until a historian uncovered it in the mid-20th century. He adopted the Bonney alias in 1877.
Q 12In which New Mexico village was Billy the Kid killed and then buried beside two of his friends?
Fort Sumner
Fort Sumner, a former army post, is where he was shot at a friend's home. He was given a candlelit wake and buried the next day under a wooden marker.
Q 13Billy the Kid was shot around midnight after walking into which room of rancher Pete Maxwell's home?
The bedroom
Q 21Billy the Kid was left an orphan in his mid-teens when his mother Catherine died of which disease?
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis killed her in 1874, soon after the family settled in New Mexico. His stepfather had already walked out, and a year later to the day the boy was caught stealing food.
Q 22In which New Mexico town did Billy the Kid spend his early teens, lose his mother and commit his first thefts?
Silver City
Silver City is where he was first jailed, and the local Herald's report of his escape two days later was the first story ever published about him.
Q 23Ten days after his first arrest for stealing food, the teenage Billy the Kid helped rob which business?
A Chinese laundry
The bedroom was dark, and the sheriff was already sitting inside questioning Maxwell when the outlaw walked in unexpectedly and failed to recognise the visitor.
Q 14During the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid rode with which deputized posse of ranch hands?
The Regulators
The Regulators formed to avenge their murdered employer and at first carried legal warrants, so the gang that made the outlaw famous began on the right side of the law.
Q 15The murder of which young English rancher, Billy the Kid's employer, ignited the Lincoln County War in 1878?
John Tunstall
John Tunstall was only 24 when members of a sheriff's posse shot him. Two of his ranch hands swore affidavits against the killers and obtained murder warrants.
Q 16Billy the Kid's only murder conviction was for the 1878 ambush killing of which Lincoln County sheriff?
William Brady
William Brady was gunned down from ambush alongside a deputy. The guilty verdict was the only conviction secured against any fighter in the Lincoln County War.
Q 17After his 1881 murder conviction in New Mexico, Billy the Kid was sentenced to which punishment?
Death by hanging
Death by hanging was set for 13 May 1881, but he never kept the date: about two weeks before it, he killed both of his guards and rode out of town.
Q 18Billy the Kid's most famous escape, in April 1881, was from the upper floor of which kind of building?
A courthouse
A courthouse in the town of Lincoln held him under guard on its top floor. He slipped his handcuffs on the stairs and used the loose end to club his guard.
Q 19During his 1881 jailbreak, Billy the Kid killed deputy Robert Olinger with which weapon, the lawman's own?
A shotgun
A shotgun that Olinger had left loaded in the sheriff's office was fired at its owner from an upstairs window as he came running towards the sound of gunfire.
Q 20Billy the Kid surrendered to a posse in December 1880 at which vividly named New Mexico hideout?
Stinking Springs
Stinking Springs is where a posse's siege killed gang member Charlie Bowdre and ended with four outlaws in shackles, met by curious crowds a few days later.
A Chinese laundry lost clothing and two pistols in the raid. Jailed for it, the boy escaped within two days and was soon a fugitive in the neighbouring territory.
Q 24The first man Billy the Kid killed, in an 1877 saloon brawl in Arizona, followed which trade?
A blacksmith
A blacksmith named Frank "Windy" Cahill had bullied the teenager and threw him to the floor. The two wrestled for a revolver, and Cahill died of his wound the next day.
Q 25Before he became Billy the Kid, the young outlaw went by which nickname borrowed from his stepfather's surname?
Kid Antrim
Kid Antrim was the name he picked up as a teenage horse thief, thanks to his youth, slight build and clean-shaven face.
Q 26In the one authenticated portrait of Billy the Kid, the outlaw stands holding which make of rifle?
Winchester
Winchester is the make: an 1873 model, held with its butt resting on the floor. He once boasted that with that rifle he could have beaten a whole armed crowd.
Q 27Which single word heads the stone memorial that Billy the Kid shares with two fellow outlaws?
Pals
Pals is carved above the three names and their death dates. An unofficial cemetery tour guide campaigned to pay for the stone in 1931, fifty years after the burials.
Q 28Billy the Kid's grave marker was stolen in 1981 and recovered days later in which distant state?
California
California is where it turned up, in Huntington Beach. New Mexico's governor had a county sheriff fly out to bring it home, and the grave sits behind iron fencing.
Q 29In December 1880, Governor Lew Wallace offered a bounty of how much for the capture of Billy the Kid?
$500
$500 was all the territory put up, and the acting governor at first refused to pay it. Townspeople across New Mexico then raised over $7,000 for the sheriff themselves.
Q 30In 1879 Billy the Kid let himself be arrested as part of a deal with the governor to do what?
Testify about a murder
Testify about a murder he had witnessed: that was his side of the bargain, and he kept it. No pardon followed, so he slipped out of jail and went back on the run.