Four Corners Furtherance: Butch Cassidy

Just as some Chicagoans glory in the mystique of gangster Al Capone, so do some Utahns in regards to Robert LeRoy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy.

Parker was born in 1866. As a child he wasn't much different than other Utahns at the time: he was a Mormon, his parents were immigrants from Great Britain, and he was part of a large family--Butch was the eldest of 13 children. He moved away from home in his early teens, working on ranches, then fell under the influence of ranch hand and outlaw Mike Cassidy. A stint as a butcher gave him his nickname and Butch took Cassidy's last name in honor of his criminal mentor.

Cassidy started with petty crime and moved up to robbing banks and trains along with his gang, the Wild Bunch, also known as the Hole in the Wall Gang. One of the members of the Wild Bunch was Harry Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid. The gang robbed several banks and trains in Utah and Wyoming around the turn of the last century. Cassidy boasted that he never killed a man, but other members of the Wild Bunch did.

After committing a crime, the gang would split up--which would of course divide the resources of law enforcement and the Pinkerton agency, which was hired by the Union Pacific railroad to capture, or if necessary, kill members of the Wild Bunch.

It's impossible to separate facts from legend with Cassidy. So one hideout of the Butch may have been Grand Wash in what is now Capitol Reef National Park. That's the wash on the right. A wash is a normally dry channel that can suddenly become a raging stream or river. Since the Capitol Reef area was one of the most isolated parts of the country until the middle of the 20th century, it's easy to believe the story is true. Near the wash is the Cassidy Trail and Cassidy Arch.

In Red Canyon, within Dixie National Forest, there is a wash, or rather a draw, named for Cassidy. Again, according to legend, Cassidy thought he killed a man in a fistfight over a woman and "hid out" near the canyon for a while.

The pressure of life on the run got to be too much to endure for Cassidy and Sundance, so they emigrated to Argentina in 1901, ranched for a while, but returned to a life of crime. After robbing a courier delivering a payroll in Bolivia, they were shot to death by Bolivian soldiers in 1908. Or were they? Rumors that Cassidy and Sundance lived until old age in America under assumed names persist to this day.

When you shop in book stores in southern Utah, you will find several volumes about Cassidy. I'm sure they disagree on the "facts" on the life of this notorious outlaw.

Most people's predominant exposure to Cassidy comes from the entertaining 1969 film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But although the facts about the duo are in dispute, it still managed to get a lot of things wrong.

But as the newspaper editor character in John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, famously remarked, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

Technorati tags: photos outdoors national parks travel travel blog photography utah nature byways capitol reef butch cassidy america usa john ford culture Americana movies entertainment bolivia