Volume 16 , Issue 7

Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid & Mysterious Etta Place

What happened to Sundance Kid's wife, Etta (Ethel) Place in her mysterious disappearance in 1907? Will the mystery ever be cleared up? Did Cassidy & Sundance Kid fake their own deaths?




Yankee Desperadoes Holdup Argentine Republic

In the Omaha Daily Bee, Omaha, Nebraska, dated 14 October 1906, page 35, had the following headlines: "Yankee Desperadoes Holdup The Argentine Republic." It was a tragic and romantic story of the exploits of a gang of western train robbers in South America.

As the story reads, Four leisurely horsemen just after ten o'clock one morning early in last March appeared in the public square of Villa Mercedes, in the province of San Luis, which occupied a central position in the Argentine Republic. Three of the men, it was noticed by those members of the population who were not too sleepy to notice anything at all, were of about medium height, well knit, bronzed and athletic. The fourth was shorter and of slender physique, with delicate hands and feet, and with the flush of youth upon cheek and brow.

The horsemen unconcernedly pulled up in front of the small hotel that occupied one side of the square and ordered drinks from the waiter, who emerged lazily in answer to their bidding. Having disposed of their refreshment and handed back their empty glasses to the dull witted servitor, the strangers deliberately dismounted and led their horses across the square, where they stopped again in front of the bank, which bore the imposing title Bank of the Nacion Argentine and was a branch of the Bank of Terrapoca of Rio Gallegos. The three stalwart members of the party tossed their bridle reins to their smaller companion and entered the bank.

At that hour of the day in Villa Mercedes, as in most other inland towns of the Argentine Republic, there was very little doing in the way of business activity, and upon the particular occasion in question a solitary clerk was in charge. This individual, casually glancing up from the ledger spread out before him, was intensely surprised to find himself gazing with rapt concentration into the frowning muzzle of a large revolver pointed directly at him by one of his visitors, who accompanied the operation with a sharp reminder that death would instantly follow any outcry or attempt at resistance.

Meanwhile, the two comrades of the man behind the gun had vaulted over the counter and were rapidly, but systematically gathering up all the cash and securities exposed to their view. They had not completed their task when the manager of the bank, having perceived from the outside an apparent access of business to the institution of which he was the Villa Mercedes head, stepped in to take personal charge of whatever transaction might be in progress.

He was promptly shot in the head by one of the intruders, all three of whom, with drawn weapons, backed out through the open door and sprang upon their horses, the whole quartet galloping out of town before the residents had fairly awakened from their accustomed state of somnolence. In a few moments the entire township was ablaze with excitement, but the marauders had made good their escape and all efforts to overtake them were futile.

During the few preceding months there had been two or three similar attacks in various sections of the Argentine, and this final assault, obviously maneuvered by the same band that had taken part in the previous outrages, served to stir the authorities of the Southern republic. They found among the documents in their possession, and which had been in their possession for a long time back, a notification from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, through a representative visiting the Argentine, that in the year 1901 a band of North American train and bank robbers had landed in Buenos Ayres and had taken up a permanent residence in the remote interior.

This gang consisted of Harry Longabaugh, alias "the Sundance Kid," Mrs. Harry Longabaugh and George Parker, alias Ryan, who were subsequently joined by Harvey Logan, alias "Kid" Curry. These were the four persons engaged in the Villa Mercedes affair, which netted them between $15,000 and $20,000.

The news report stated it was Etta Longbaugh, wife of Harry Longbaugh, who, dressed in masculine attire, held the horses of herself and her companions in front of the Villa Mercedes branch of the bank of Tarrapaca, while it was being robbed by her husband and his mates, just as she had held their horses upon other occasions when similar raids were made in the Argentine.

Mr. and Mrs. Longbaugh and George Parker sailed from this country directly for Buenos Ayres. After reaching Buenos Ayres they took passage on a coastwise steamer to the port of Bahia Blanca, still further south. From this place they shipped upon a semi-monthly river steamboat to an inland point called Rawson, striking out across country mounted on mules. They had already purchased extensive pasture lands to the southward some seventy-five miles from the small village of Cholulo, where their nearest white neighbors were situated.

when they reached their destination the party had traveled in all some seventy-four days from New York, thirty-nine days to Buenos Ayres, twenty days more to Rawson and fifteen days from that interior hamlet to their ranch, which is in the province of Chibute, or Chubut, in the Department of the Sixteenth on October (1906).

The capital required for this investment, together wight he no inconsiderable amount demanded for traveling expenses on the journey of twelve thousand miles, had been derived from sundry train and bank robberies in the Western part of the United States, the bold and daring character of which will be described later.

It is apparent that Longbaugh, the leader of what is left of one of the most noted bands of robbers in this country, intended, when framing up the trip to South America, to abandon the life of outlawry and become a legitimate rancher, together with the man and woman who accompanied him. The ranch upon which the little party settled occupies a high tableland in the Indian country of the South, and from its surface there is a perfect view of the country for twenty miles or more in every direction. The spot is inaccessible in the extreme, and if any attempt were made to dislodge or capture the "Americanos" it might require the services of a full regiment of soldiery and would undoubtedly end in much loss of life, owing to the naturally defensive quality of the position.

Even then it is extremely doubtful if their capture might be effected, for there was reason o believe that the northern bandits had acquired a very thorough knowledge of the county they had chosen to honor with their presence. They began operations upon their elevated tableland by erecting living quarters, and proceeded in due course to stock the ranch with sheep, horses and cattle. According to such information as may be gleaned from the Indians (for white men have not considered it a healthful proposition to invade the Longbaugh-Parker-Logan territory), there were between five hundred and one thousand head of domestic animals then upon he ranch.

It was opposed that Longbaugh and his friends miscalculated in the matter of how far their funds would go and found they could not swing the ranching proposition upon their original capital. In this emergency they went back to first principles and took up the series of exploits the most recent of which to be recorded took place in Villa Mercedes.

The stuff of which the three men and their woman consort was made may be gathered from the fact that as the crow flies the Villa Mercedes was approximately four hundred miles from the ranch which they made their home. The actual journey must have been fully half again as long, owing to the rough and circuitous route necessarily followed, both going and coming. But the members of the band had been accustomed to much sterner feats of horsemanship and endurance in North America, and they quite probably looked upon the Villa Mercedes undertaking as a mere incident of ordinary life.

Once before two of the men, in playful mood, presumably Logan and Parker, were traveling in the mountains in a stage coach, the only other occupants of which were the driver and one passenger. In the course of conversation they learned that their fellow voyager had with him a trunk containing a large sum of money in gold. At a convenient place where the coach was traversing the edge of a deep ravine the two Americans pitched the driver and passenger headlong into the abyss below, rifled the trunk of its golden contents and rode off upon the backs of the coach horses, escaping unmolested to their distant plateau.

Although their identity was more than suspected and their location had been made known to the authorities through the Pinkertons, no visible attempt was ever made to overtake and punish the ostensible ranchers.

A certain romantic interest was thrown about this little coterie of desperadoes by reason of the presence among them of Etta Longbaugh, the intrepid wife of the leader. She ws but twenty-six years of age, with graceful, girlish figure, dark, flashing eyes, regular features, brilliant white teeth and a mass of wavy dark hair. She could shoot wight he rapidity and precision of a professional marksman, handling rifle and revolver with equal deftness. She wore masculine attire almost invariably and rode astride of her horse quite as well and wishfully as much fortitude as her male associates. Where she originally found Longbaugh, or where he found her, is not an item of poise history, but the Pinkertons would probably pay any one who would identify and furnish her pedigree.

It was known that she went with Longbaugh when he left this port upon his long journey to the Argentine. There was a belief that Etta in her youth was a Western cowgirl known as Etta Place, and that Longbaugh met her and induced her to run away with him during one of his holdup raids in this country, some years ago.

It was altogether probable that Longbaugh and the rapidly dismissing remnant of his outlaw gang in America were induced to emigrate to southern climates by the uncomfortable pressure of the net that the Pinkertons, together wight he regular police, sheriffs and United States marshals of the Western States, had been drawing about their quarry, slowly but surely, for eight or ten years.

It was one of the special provinces of the Pinkerton agency to safeguard the interests of express and railway companies and of banking institutions that were members of the American Bankers' Association. In this capacity they were constantly in pursuit of the various classes of criminals whose aim it was in one way or another to rob express cars and banks. The most dangerous, as well as the most difficult, to capture of all grades and conditions of looters were the "stickup" gangs, composed of men fearless to the point of desperation, to whom bloodshed was a matter of not the slightest consequence, while they value their own lives as nothing at all.

For a number of years the section of Wyoming known as the "hole in the Wall" was infested with men of this description, from horse thieving, cattle rustling and similar pursuits they turned their attention to holding up railway trains and banking houses in small towns scattered all over the West, and they gradually formed themselves into various bands or mobs.

Knowing Logan's desperate character, the Pinkertons recommended to the Great Northern express Company that a night and day watch be placed over the prisoner in the Knox county jail to prevent his escape until he was delivered to the Columbus (Ohio) State prison, to which institution he had been sentenced.

On Saturday, June 27, 1903, Logan made a daring flight, through the gross carelessness of the jailer and special guards. He had been confined in a separate corridor under these guards. One of their number, Irwin, left his revolvers in a basket at one end of the corridor and went to the other end, directly in front of Logan's.

Logan murdered or participated in the murder of not less than ten persons, most of whom were killed in pursuit of him for train robberies. In some instances the killing was out of pure revenge for attempts to capture him, shooting his associates for giving information as to his whereabouts.

July 26, 1901, Logan traveled more than two hundred miles out of his way to kill James Winters, a well to do cattle man, whom Logan suspected of having given some information to officers in regard to him. It was also alleged that after George Curry, the second leader, one of the Wild Bunch, was killed by a posse for participating in the holding up of a Union Pacific train at Wilcox, Wyoming, Logan and Tom Capehart murdered Sheriff John Tyler and one of his deputes, both of Moab, Utah, members of the posse that had attempted to arrest the gang for the Wilcox holdup and who Logan believed had killed "Flat Nose" George Curry. The other murders he was alleged to have been concerned in were: December 25, 1894, Pike Landusky, Landusky, Mont., and June 5, 1899, Sheriff Hazen, at Tea Pot Creek, Casper, Wyoming, who with a posse was pursuing Logan and other raiders for the robbery of the Unions Pacific train at Wilcox, Wyoming.

After Logan's arrest the leadership of the Wild Bunch was assumed by Harry Longbaugh. Other members of this band hung, killed resisting arrest, serving long terms in prison or exiles to foreign countries were: Elza Lay, alias W. H. McGinnis, partner of Butch Cassidy and other members of the Wild Bunch, arrested September 16, 1899, and serving a life sentence in the Santa Fe, New Mexico penitentiary, for participation in the Cimarron, New Mexico train robbery, in July, 1899, by the Black Jack band, of which he was a member. Lonny Logan alias Curry, alias Lee, a brother of Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry, killed at Dodson, Missouri, February 28, 1900, while resisting arrest, by a posse composed of Pinkerton detectives and officers of the Kansas City police department, for the robbery of the Union Pacific train at Wilcox, Wyoming, June 2, 1899.

Bob Lee, alias Bob Curry, a cousin of the Logan brothers, arrested at Cripple Creek, Colorado, by Pinkerton detectives, aided by two sheriff's officers, tried in the United States Court, convicted and sentenced to ten years in the State Penitentiary, Rawlins, Wyoming, for the robbery of the Union Pacific express train, Wilcox, Wyoming. He was sentenced on May 29, 1900. He died June 24, 1900, in the Santa Fe, NM penitentiary, from a wound inflicted by a posse of officers seeking his arrest for the robbery of the Colorado and Southern Railroad company, Cimarron, NM.

Ben Kilpatrick, alias John Arnold, alias the Tall Texan, was arrested in St. Louis, November 5, 1901, in one of the night resorts of that city. Upon his person was found a parcel of the unsigned bills stolen in the Wagner exploit, and he received a sentence of fifteen years in the Columbus (Ohio) penitentiary. Kilpatrick was pictured as a native of Concho county, Texas, a man of fine physique, who had been a murderer, highwayman, holdup, cattle rustler and outlaw for years. As in the case of Longbaugh, Kilpatrick had a woman associate who had never faltered in her loyalty to him.

When he was taken into custody the key to a room in the Laciede Hotel was found in his pocket, and inside this room the St. Louis police discovered a young woman, who was carrying in her satchel a bundle of the express robbery notes. This woman was Laura Bullion, alias Clara Hayes, born in Knickerbocker, Texas, and she was sentenced to a term in the Jefferson City (MO) penitentiary upon a charge of having stolen property in her possession. After she had served her allotted time in prison Laura Bullion went to Atlanta, GA, in order that she might be near her lover, who had, while she was in Jefferson City prison, been transferred to the Atlanta penitentiary. She was a typical Wild Western criminal, and the lines of her face, as shown in the police photograph, denote courage, determination and extreme fixity of purpose.

The remainder of the band, under the leadership of Harvey Logan, were Harry Longbaugh, alias Sundance Kid; George Cassidy, alias Ryan, and Etta Place.

This association of criminals acquired the title of the Wild Bunch, by reason of the utter recklessness of its members, individually and collectively, and the starting audacity with which its deeds of pillage and violence were accomplished.

The disbandment and extermination of this extraordinary clan of desperadoes had been due to the long, unrelenting and extremely costly pursuit by the Union Pacific Railroad and the Pacific Express Company, the American Bankers' Association, the Pinkertons, the local police forces, sheriffs, United States marshals and railroad and special policemen operating in the entire West and Southwest.

But the end was not yet. The Pinkertons, representing the railroads, express companies and the banks robbed by the exiled members of the Wild Bunch, were patiently awaiting their return to the United States, when they would eventually be brought to justice.

For a long time similarity in handiwork was about the only clue that could be followed. The outrages perpetrated by the Wild Bunch occurred at points so widely separated that but for the sameness which characterized all their doings it would have been considered exceedingly improbable that the crimes were executed by a single gang. The men were accustomed to conceal their identities while at work by tying folded bandana handkerchiefs across their faces directly underneath their eyes, so that it was utterly impossible to give an intelligent description of their lineaments.

An odd fact noted by the deceives who had been working for a decade upon this line of investigation and extermination was that by far the greater number of stickup robbers and murderers came fro Missouri and Texas. The cause of this situation was unknown, unless, indeed, it was to be found in the examples years ago set before the rising generation by the James and the Younger brothers, of Missouri, by all odds the most distinguished criminals of their time, although certainly by no means more crafty, desperate and indefatigable than the Wild Bunch.   |  View or Add Comments (2 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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