Volume 16 , Issue 7

Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch

Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch was the last of the wild west outlaws and bank robbers. Butch Cassidy was born Robert Leroy Parker on 13 April 1866, Beaver, Utah, the oldest of 13 children in a poor Mormon family. Cassidy was a teenager when he left home in the hopes of carving out a better, prosperous life.

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Cassidy (Parker) found work on several different ranches and eventually befriended a rancher named Mike Cassidy, who had a reputation for stealing cattle and horses. Parker admired the elder Cassidy and emulated his friend. Parker not wanting to disrespect his family, he changed his name to Butch Cassidy.

It was in 1900, that Cassidy partnered with Harry A. Longabaugh (a.k.a. Sundance Kid). They eluded police by escaping to South America. In 1906, they returned to crime. It is alleged they were trapped and killed by police in Boliva, in 1908 or 1909, but reports vary.

Bob Leroy Parker (Butch Cassidy) was a charming thief, who was well liked and who never killed anyone. Butch's first taste of a a major robbery came in June, 1889, when he and three other cowboys made off with more than $20,000 from the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado.

Butch purchased a ranch of his own in Dubois, Wyoming, in 1890, and continued to rustle cattle and horses. In 1894, the law caught up to him. He was jailed for two years for the crime. Some say he was setup.

It was in 1896, Butch Cassidy resumed his life as a criminal with several other well known outlaws, including Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (Sundance Kid), William Ellsworth Lay (Elzy Lay), Ben Kilpatrick (Tall Texan) and Harvey Logan (Kid Curry). They were known as the Wild Bunch by the Pinkerton Detectives, and the name Wild Bunch stuck with their legend.

Between robberies the Wild Bunch hid out at the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass, located in Johnson County, Wyoming, where Butch Cassidy owned a ranch.

Did Butch Cassidy fake his death in San Vicente, Boliva? There are suggestions that after making it big in Bolivian train, payroll and bank robberies, it was alleged Cassidy sailed to Europe, got a facelift, and moved back to America, married, then became an entrepreneur in the state of Washington. Some of the evidence might be convincing, especially a detailed manuscript about Cassidy, which some say was actually authored by Cassidy. But that is just another of the conjectures out there about this Wild Bunch gang.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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