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 Robert
Leroy Parker, a.k.a. Butch Cassidy, was born April 13, 1866 in Beaver,
Utah. He was known as Roy by his family and friends. When he was 13
Roy's family moved to a ranch in Circle Valley, Utah. There he fell
under the influence of ranch hand Mike Cassidy.
Roy later joined Mike Cassidy's gang which cleaned out stockmen's herds
and sold them in other parts of the country. During one of the raids
Mike Cassidy shot and killed a Wyoming rancher which forced him to leave
and go into hiding. Roy took over Mike Cassidy's gang, which hid out at
Robber's Roost in Utah. Thus began the career of Butch Cassidy.
From being cattle stealer, for which he served two years in a Wyoming
jail from 1894 to 1896, to being a planner of the robbery of trains,
banks, and mine payrolls Cassidy soon became a well known outlaw of the
American West.
By 1896, he had organized a gang who called themselves the "Wild
Bunch." This gang consisted of several well-known Western outlaws
including the Sundance Kid, Harvey Logan a.k.a. Kid Curry, Ben
Kilpatrick a.k.a. the Tall Texan, Harry Tracy, Elzy Lay, and several
others. Operating around the turn of the century, Cassidy and his
partners pulled off the longest sequence of successful bank and train
robberies in the history of the American West. Between 1889 and 1901 the
gang pulled off at least 10 succesful robberies totalling $365,000. One
of the last successful robberies took place on July 3, 1901 when the
Wild Bunch robbed the Exeter, Montana Bank for $65,000.
Successfully avoiding the law became harder as the West grew more
populated and law enforcement became better organized. The Pinkerton
Detective Agency was hired to chase down Cassidy, and Harry Longabaugh.
They ended up in South America and purchased a ranch in Argentina.
On November 3, 1908, the two Americans pinched a Bolivian mining
company's payroll which led, three days later, to the San Vicente
shootout. Some believe that they were killed in the shootout. However,
letters and journals in Cassidy's writing declare that he escaped and
returned to the United States in 1908, and later married Gertrude
Livesay in Adrian, Michigan. They settled down in Spokane, Washington
and he became known as William Thadeus Phillips. The two later adopted a
son, "Billy Dick." He died on July 20, 1937 at the age of 71.
Like many other Western figures, Butch Cassidy has become larger than
life.
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