Every time I go to Alamogordo and see the sign for the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park, I tell myself I am going to find out who Oliver Lee is. I hadn't yet gotten around to it when I received an e-mail from Janie Bell Furman of Alamogordo a couple of weeks ago. Janie informed me that Oliver Milton Lee was a New Mexico rancher, "famous or infamous in New Mexico, depending on who you talk to, who was tried and found not guilty of the murder of Col. Fountain." "Fountain was killed at age 58 along with his 8-year-old son, Henry, as they crossed New Mexico's Tularosa Basin on what is now White Sands Missile Range. "For years before his death, Fountain was the attorney for the Southeastern New Mexico Stock Association. Only a month before his death, he sought and secured indictments on charges of cattle rustling against 23 men. "Rancher Oliver Lee and his cowhand Jim Gilliland were ultimately tried for Henry's murder, but neither was convicted. They were defended at trial by Fountain's political nemesis and Lee's best friend, Albert Fall. No one was ever tried for Fountain's murder. His body was never found. As for Oliver Milton Lee, David Sheppard of the Times wrote in an August 1990 article, "The Otero County pioneer once owned a million-acre cattle and horse empire that stretched from Tularosa south to El Paso. "Born in Buffalo Gap, Texas, Lee moved to New Mexico when he was 19 and built the Dog Canyon ranch in 1893. He lived there until he moved his headquarters to the Circle Cross ranch near Timberon, N.M., in 1907...
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