He was later elected to City Treasurer, then Mayor of Alamosa, and later as Conejos County commissioner.

[1] The centennial historian of the state, Marshall Sprague, summarized Billy Adams as "a cheerful, outgoing, bowlegged cowboy.

Adams died on February 4, 1954, in Alamosa, Colorado, at the age of ninety-two, where he is buried.

Billy’s older brother, Alva Adams, was also governor of Colorado from 1887 to 1889, from 1897 to 1899, and 1905.

Billy's nephew, Alva Blanchard Adams, was a United States Senator from Colorado from 1923 until 1925 and from 1933 to 1941.