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BUTCH CASSIDY
Robert LeRoy Parker (alias Butch Cassidy)
poses in the Wild Bunch group photo,
Fort Worth, Texas, 1901
Born
5 April 1866
Beaver, Utah
Died7 November 1908 (aged 42)
Shot by police outside San Vicente, Bolivia (assumed)
Parents-
Maximillian Parker and Ann Campbell Gillies
Occupation
Train and bank robber, Criminal
Mini- Biography
Full Biography- Butch Cassidy-wikipedia
Robert LeRoy Parker was born on 5th April, 1866.
His father, Max Parker, had a small farm in Circleville, Utah.
It was used as a hideout for outlaws and one of those
who made regular visits
was Mike Cassidy, who had a big influence on Robert Parker
and he eventually adopted the name Butch Cassidy.
1889-1895 — Early robberies, Going to prison
Cassidy became a cowboy and helped drive cattle to Telluride, Colorado.
The same trio, together with an unknown fourth man,
was responsible for the robbery on June 24, 1889,
of the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride in which they stole
approximately $21,000, after which they fled to the Robbers Roost,
a remote hideout in southeastern Utah.
In 1890, Parker purchased a ranch near Dubois, Wyoming.
This location is close to the notorious Hole-in-the-Wall,
a natural geological formation which afforded outlaws
much welcomed protection and cover, and so the suspicion has always existed
that Parker's ranching, at which he was never economically successful,
was in fact a façade which operated to conceal more clandestine activities,
perhaps in conjunction with Hole-in-the-Wall outlaws.
Robert Leroy Parker,
when imprisoned at the
Wyoming Territorial Prison
in Laramie, Wyoming
In early 1894, Parker became involved romantically with Old West outlaw
and rancher Ann Bassett. Bassett's father, rancher Herb Bassett,
did business with Parker, supplying him with fresh horses and beef.
That same year, Parker was arrested at Lander, Wyoming,
for stealing horses and possibly for running a protection racket
among the local ranchers there. Imprisoned in the state prison in
Laramie, Wyoming, he served 18 months of a two-year sentence
and was released in January 1896, having promised
Governor William Alford Richards that he would not again offend in that state
in return for a partial remission of his sentence.
Upon his release, he became involved briefly with
Ann Bassett's older sister, Josie, then returned to his involvement with Ann.
In 1900 the gang eventually escaped to the Robbers' Roost in Utah.
Cassidy now formed a new gang that became known as the Wild Bunch.
This include Harry Longbaugh (the Sundance Kid),
Ben Kilpatrick, Harvey Logan, William Carver, George Curry,
Elza Lay, Bob Meeks and Harvey Logan.
Left to right: Henry Longbaugh (Sundance Kid), William Carver,
Ben Kilpatrick, Henry Logan and Robert Parker
The name Wild Bunch was misleading as Cassidy always
tried to avoid his gang hurting people during robberies.
His gang were also ordered to shoot at the horses, rather than the riders,
when being pursued by posses.
Cassidy always proudly boasted that he had never killed a man.
The name actually came from the boisterous way they spent
their money after a successful robbery.
On 2nd June, 1899, Cassidy, Curry, Logan and Lay took part
in the highly successful Union Pacific train holdup at Wilcox, Wyoming.
After stealing $30,000 the gang fled to New Mexico.
On 29th August, 1900, Cassidy, with the Sundance Kid,
Logan and two unidentified gang members,
held up the Union Pacific train at Tipton, Wyoming.
This was followed by a raid on the First National Bank of Winnemucca, Nevada
(19th September, 1900) that netted $32,640.
The following year the gang obtained $65,000
from the Great Northern train near Wagner, Montana.
George Curry was killed by Sheriff Jesse Tyler on 17th April, 1900.
The following year William Carver and Ben Kilpatrick were ambushed
by Sheriff Elijah Briant and his deputies at Sonora, Texas.
Carver died from his wounds three hours later.
Kilpatrick escaped but he was captured in St Louis with another gang member,
Laura Bullion, on 8th November, 1901.
Kilpatrick was found guilty of robbery and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Another gang member, Harvey Logan was captured on 15th December, 1901.
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid began to think that being an outlaw
in America was becoming too dangerous and decided
to start a new life in South America.
On 29th February, 1902, the two men and Etta Place,
left New York City aboard the freighter, Soldier Prince.
When they arrived in Argentina they purchased land at Chubut Province.
After farming for nearly four years the men decided to return to crime
and in March 1906 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
robbed a bank of $20,000 in San Luis Province.
During the raid a banker was killed.
Other raids followed at Bahia Blanca (Argentina),
Eucalyptus (Bolivia) and Rio Gallegos (Argentina).
In 1909 the men were back in Bolivia.
One account claims that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
were killed in a shoot-out at San Vicente.
However, the police were not able to positively identify the two dead men.
According to another source the men were killed
while trying to rob a bank in Mercedes, Uruguay in December, 1911.
Claims of post-1908 survival
However, there were claims, such as by Parker's sister
Lula Parker Betenson, that he returned alive to the United States
and lived in anonymity for years.
In her biography "Butch Cassidy, My Brother",
Betenson cites several instances of people familiar with Parker
who encountered him long after 1908,
and she relates a detailed impromptu "family reunion" of Butch,
their brother Mark, their father Maxi, and Lula, in 1925.
In 1974 or 1975, Red Fenwick, a diligent, reliable senior citizen
columnist at The Denver Post, told writer Ivan Goldman,
then a reporter at the Post, that he was acquainted with Parker's physician,
a woman. Fenwick said she was a person of absolute integrity.
She told Fenwick that she had continued to treat Parker for many years
after he supposedly was killed in Bolivia.
(But some sources claim she was only kidding when she told
the story of Butch's post-1908 survival!)
There is anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that Longabaugh
also returned to the United States and died in 1937.
In his Annals of the Former World, John McPhee repeats a story
told to geologist David Love (1913-2002) in the 1930s by Love's family doctor,
Francis Smith, M.D., when Love was a doctoral student. Smith
stated that he had just seen Parker, that Parker told Smith
that his face had been altered by a surgeon in Paris,
and that he showed Smith a repaired bullet wound that
Smith recognized as work he had previously done on Parker.
Western historian Charles Kelly closed the chapter
"Is Butch Cassidy Dead?" in his 1938 book, Outlaw Trail,
by observing that if Parker "is still alive, as these rumors claim,
it seems exceedingly strange that he has not returned
to Circleville, Utah, to visit his old father, Maximillian Parker,
who died on July 28, 1938, at the age of 94 years.
" Kelly is thought to have interviewed Parker's father,
but no known transcript of such an interview exists.
However, if Parker was indeed still alive, then there
is no mystery as to why his father would deny he had been
visited by his fugitive son after 1908.
While Kelly said that all correspondence from both Parker and Longabaugh
ceased after the San Vicente incident, some correspondence
has been published that is dated 1930, 1937 and 1938
and said to have been written by Parker .
Edited and Compiled by ethanedwards
With Information and Photographs from
Spartucus Educational and Wikipedia
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