Billy the Kid, Wyo., just north of Rock River, in the 1950s was a motel, truck stop, café, and souvenir shop with a small petting zoo. Drivers frequently complained about the poor visibility the stretch of highway had in front of it. The midday sun, some mentioned, obscured the turn-off to Billy the Kid.
Actress Judy Tyler and her actor husband Greg Lafayette were driving east by car, Lafayette apparently was scheduled to act in a Broadway play later in the summer. She had just completed filming of Jailhouse Rock with Elvis Presley.
It was a bright summer day in July 1957, about noon, when the couples’ car was about to drive past the only entrance/exit to Billy the Kid. A station wagon abruptly pulled out in front of them. The resulting collision killed Tyler instantly and critically injured Lafayette.
The photograph, taken c. 1953, seems to be one of the few showing the site. The people are not identified. The note on the photograph refers to the Tyler’s tragic death on July 3, 1957.
The site, about three miles north of Rock River, burned sometime in the early 1960s. Nothing remains on the site and the highway no longer passes by it. Instead, at the Overland Trail marker, the highway gently curves to the West, following the railroad tracks past a site identified as “Wilcox Station,” near where Butch Cassidy’s gang robbed a train in 1900.