September 26, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, when people think of Butch Cassidy, they often imagine Paul Newman’s characterization from the famous movie in 1969. But the real story of Butch Cassidy is the story of a western Godfather of sorts who brought organization to a world of unorganized crime. Here to tell the story is Roger McGrath.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
When people think of Butch Cassidy, they often imagine Paul
Newman's character from the famous movie Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid, made in nineteen sixty nine with Robert Redford.
But the real story of Butch Cassidy is the story
(00:31):
of a Western godfather of sorts who brought organization to
a world of unorganized crime. Here to tell the story
is Roger McGrath. Roger is the author of Gunfighters, Hollyman
and Vigilantes Violence on the Frontier. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Butch Cassidy, the last great outlaw of the American West,
is born Robert Leory Parker in Beaver, Utah, on Friday
the thirteenth in April eighteen sixty six to a family
of Mormon immigrants. He is the first of thirteen children
born to two of the earliest Mormon settlers, Maximillion and
(01:12):
Anne Parker. In eighteen seventy nine, Maximillion buys a homestead
in Circle Valley, and thirteen year old Robert Leroy, or
Roy as he is called, is not old enough to
help support the family and is sent off to work
at a nearby ranch. Here's Tom Hatch, author of The
(01:32):
Last Outlaws.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Bob Parker was the oldest of thirteen kids, and so
he became the surrogate father, and he would take care
of the kids. Bob was like a big kid himself,
and he was throughout his whole life. He was a
very gregarious man who made friends wherever he went because
of his personality. His mother homeschooled the kids, mostly on
(01:58):
the Bible. She would hope services there. He absolutely adored
his mother.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yale force, wins and droughts make life on the Parker
homestead a struggle. Maximilian decides to homestead additional acreage in
the valley, but rights to the new property are contested
by another settler. By Mormon custom, the dispute is mediated
by the local church bishop. The bishop awards the land
(02:26):
to the other settler, who has thought more faithful to
the church. Maximilion is furious. Young Roy is furious also.
He feels the Mormon religion has been used to cheat
his family out of their land. Ray sets out to
support his family by hurrying out again, this time at
(02:48):
Jim Marshall's Ranch. During Roy's second season at Marshall's Ranch,
he meets a man who would forever alter the direction
of his life all time, Cattile Rustler Mike Cassidy. Here's
ujah historian, Ken Verduia.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Mike Cassidy. He's a well known horseman, and he's great
with a revolver, an excellent shot and marksman, and Cassidy
takes a liking to Little Bobby Parker teaches him how
to really ride a horse, teaches him how to handle
a revolver, how to become a good marksman, and more importantly,
Mike Cassidy shows him how to cut corners. There's big
(03:31):
cattle operations, and they'll never miss it if one or
two or ten of the herd gets cut away and
goes to another place.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And Somber of eighteen eighty four or at Parker is
eighteen years old and full grown, stands five foot nine
weys one hundred and sixty five pounds. He's described as friendly,
good natured, loyal, and generous. He also has an infectious
grin and as a natural leader. A ranch cowboy says
Rory can ride around a tree at full speed and
(04:04):
put every bullet from his revolver into a three hand circle.
Mike Cassidy has taught the kid well. His wrestling soon
becomes known to the local authorities, though, and he leaves
for the gold mining boom town of Tell Your Ride, Colorado.
Some claim the town got its name from a quick
(04:25):
pronunciation of tail your Ride. For a young man seeking adventure,
Rory has come to the right place, rugged frontiersman, packed
teller rides, famed saloons, gambling halls, and houses of ill repute.
Here's historians of the Old West, Paul Hutton and Tom Hatch.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
Robert Parker goes to a world that couldn't be more different.
This is the wild boomtown world of the mining camp.
So a lot of gambling, a lot of drinking, lot
of prostitution, a lot of young men heavily armed and
fueled by alcohol.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
He went in there with a Mormon mind, and within
a week or two, I'm sure he'd been in every
saloon there, and he learned how to drink with the
best of them, and he gambled with the best of them.
And he didn't feel comfortable in Mormon country, but he
felt comfortable until Your Ride.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Rory Land's a grueling job running a back train of
mules all in Goldman silver or from the mines to
the mills.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
He soon wearies of the drudgery going in the mines
each and every day. Robert Parker looks at that as
a sucker's bet. You're coming out bone where you could
die down there, and what have you earned at the
end of the day. But on the corner is the
San Miguel bank.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
Ry.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
With two of his new friends, elapsed Mormon named Matt
Warner and Warner's brother in law Tom McCarty, pulls his
first major criminal job, the robbery of the San Miguel
Valley Bank of Tillery Ride on June twenty fourth, eighteen
eighty nine. The most attempts at robbing banks in the
(06:17):
Old West feel miserably because of poor planning or no
planning at all. Roy is undeterred by the odds against him,
and for good reason.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
From the very beginning, he had a methodology. He wasn't
just one of these wild writers like the movies make
so famous. He was very misonical, He was very careful,
He was very intelligent.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Parker knew it's not just about where the money is,
but knowing when it will be at its peak? When
will the cash arrive? Who handles the cash, how many
people are in the building at the time when the
cash is at its peak? And more importantly than that,
(07:08):
how will I make my escape?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And you've been listening to the story of Robert Parker,
sometimes called Roy, but as we've come to know him,
the story of Butch Cassidy, as told by doctor Roger McGrath.
When we come back, more of the story of Butch
Cassidy here on our American Stories. Lihabib here the host
(07:33):
of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't
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and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.
(07:56):
Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and we continue with
our American Stories and the story of but Cassidy as
told by Roger McGrath. Let's pick up where we last
(08:17):
left off.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Roy Parker's accomplice, Tom McCarty is an old hand at
bank robbery, and he impresses upon Roy the importance of
not only planning each step of the robbery, but also
each step of the getaway. Several weeks before robbery, Roy
will train and hardened horses to be used in the getaway.
(08:42):
Blooded animals are selected, grain fit, and exercised rigorously. When
the first relay has reached, Rory switches to thorobreds it
wle to maintain a swift pace over a long distance.
If necessary, a second and a third relay horses is used.
This masterstroke will become Ry Parker's signature technique. The robbery
(09:08):
of the bank an tell you right goes exactly as
plan and Ry and the others gallop out of town.
Here's Ken for Doria and True West magazine contributor Tom Ross.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
And this is the genius of Robert Parker. He had
planned the escape even better than he had planned the
whole cup.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
This is the first of his great escapades where they
wind up with big money. I mean, you walk away
from a bank with twenty thousand dollars and you're looking
at it what a cowboy might take him five or
ten years to make. If he saved every penny.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
This is a serious crime. It's one thing to take
a few cows or take a couple of horses, but
this is big time robbery. There's no going back.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
There's no going back.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Rorett Parker knows his deed will break the heart of
his pious mother and decides to deflect shame from his family.
He drops a family name and begins using the surname
Cassidy in honor of his mentor. He will later also
add the nickname Butch and become known to history his
(10:20):
Butch Cassidy. The steep canyons, an unforgiving terrain that make
up the fifteen hundred mile long stretch of wilderness that
runs from New Mexico to Montana, is known as the
Outlaw Trail. A series of hideouts on the trail are notorious,
with the names Robbers, Roost, Brown's Hole, and Hole in
(10:43):
the Wall.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
One of the benefits of being a Western outlaw is space.
The American West is vast. It's cut by canyons, mountain ranges,
river trails. A lot of places, there's only one way in,
and so it's easy to guard. It's easy to see
(11:08):
who's coming, and so these become natural fortifications for the
outlaw bands to hide in. And if you're a lawman,
and especially if you're just a civilian posse, you're not
going in there.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
It's suicide.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
In April eighteen ninety two, a couple of lawmen arrest
Butch for being in possession of three stolen horses. Now
Butch claims he purchased the horses fair and square, and
that seems to have been the case. However, the man
he had purchased them from had stolen the horses. In
(11:48):
July eighteen ninety four, is sentenced to two years in
the Wyoming State Penitentiary after serving eighteen months, which applies
for a pardon. William Richards, the governor of Wyoming, asks Cassidy,
will you give me your word that you're quit rustling?
(12:10):
But she replies, can't do that, Governor, because if I
gave you my word, I do only have to break it.
I'm in too deep now to quit the game. But
I'll promise you one thing, if you give me a pardon,
I'll keep out of Wyoming. Well, Cassidy's frankness wins over
(12:30):
Governor Richards. The governor signs the pardon, and in January
eighteen ninety six, Butch Cassidy walks out of the penitentiary
a free man. If Butch Cassidy was a minor outlaw
before he went to prison. Upon his release, he's determined
to make a name for himself. Butch begins to gather
(12:52):
together a group of outlaws who will become known as
the Wild Bunch. Among this band of strong personalities, Butch
is the clear leader. Here's Cassidy, bigerpher W C.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Jamison.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
There was no job that he couldn't do.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I think the others in the gang recognized his confidence,
recognized his leadership, and thought.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
That with this guy, we're going to be able to
do some cool things.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Butch hand picks each member of the gang and expects
the best from those who ride with him. The core
members include William Ilsey, Leay Harvey, Kit Curry, Logan Ben,
the tall Texan Kilpatrick, will News Carver, and lastly, the
(13:44):
twenty one year old introvert Harry Logobah, the man known
to history as the sun Dance Kid.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Sundance was born Harry Longabah about thirty miles north of Philadelphia,
and he grew up on the canals. He would work
probably twenty hours a day sometimes, and it would walk
twenty five miles each day. But Harry had dreams. He
paid one whole dollar for a library card, which was
(14:14):
quite a bit of money at that time to a
poor boy, and he read these pulp novels about Jesse
James and Buffalo Bill. This is where dreams of the
West came into his head.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
I think it's difficult to understand today the lure of
adventure that existed in the late nineteenth century, especially for
a young boy like Harry growing up in Pennsylvania. The
West offered everything that the society of the East seemed
to work against, and a lot of young men went
(14:51):
west in search of adventure.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
The twenty year old Longabat earns his nickname the Sundance
Kid after having served a year in the the Sundance,
Wyoming Jail for horse theft. In eighteen ninety two, Sundance
Kid and two accomplices rob a Great Northern Railroad train
at Malta, Montana. Accomplices are eventually captured, tried, and convicted,
(15:15):
but the Sundance Kid makes good his escape and is
introduced to Butch Cassidy on the Outlaw Trail.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Butch signed Sundance someone he could trust number one and
number two, someone he could bounce his ideas off of,
and they would go nowhere else.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Butch Cassidy's first robbery following his release from the Wyoming
State Penitentiary occurs in August eighteen ninety six at Mountain Puelier, Idaho.
As usual, butch escaper is conducted with impeccable execution, a
breathtaking escape, and not a single dead body.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Butch understood one simple premise, he didn't have to kill people.
Some would go into a robbery and kill just silence voices.
Butch said, if my getaway is clean enough, I don't
have to silence voices.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
A station agent tries to telegraph price Utah the direction
the outlaws seemed to beheaded, but Cassidine Lay have cut
the wires. Cassidye Lay then escaped by a circuitous route
with fresh relays of horses, and eventually reached Brown's hole
(16:36):
some eight thousand dollars richer more than a quarter million today.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
Butch Cassidy and later in the segment of the Sundance
Kid and how they got together and it had to
do in the end with Butch Cassidy's talent, his managerial talent,
his leadership talent, and mastering not just the art of
robbing a bank, but more importantly mastering the getaway. And
(17:03):
these were big time bank robberies. This was not nickel
and dimes stuff. And as we learned, once you're in,
it's hard to get out of this life. And that's
back then and still today. You choose a life of crime,
and the people around you become well a part of
that choice as well, and then your entire lifestyle is
that choice. And we learned that here in the nineteenth
(17:25):
century where to go for adventure was the wild West,
and that indeed is where the Sun Dance Kid ended up.
He grew up in Philadelphia, of all places, but the
lure of adventure and the lure of that open country
and those dime store novels he read in the bookstore,
that's what got him to just pack his bags and
(17:47):
head west. When we come back more of the story
of Butch Cassidy as told by doctor Roger McGrath. Here
on our American story, and we continue with our American
(18:09):
stories and the story of Butch Cassidy. You're again to
continue with this story is Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
By eighteen ninety eight, news of the charismatic Cassidy and
his wild bunch begin to make headlines from San Francisco
to New York. But along with their success, as America
approaches the twentieth century, the once wild and free West
is being transformed. Thirty years of unprecedented expansion of fast
(18:40):
transportation and communication systems have connected a settled and civilized
East with the once wild and wooly American West. Powerful
railroad executives, mining barons, and cattle kings are tired of
being robbed by Western outlaw and turn into a powerful
(19:02):
ally to impose their own brand of law and order.
Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Here's historians of the American West,
Marshall Trimble and Andrew Nilson. They were a private detective agency.
Speaker 9 (19:20):
Therefore they weren't bound by the laws of regular lawmen.
Speaker 6 (19:25):
Bribery, deceit. Nothing is off the table for the Pinkertons,
and they are just as, if not more sophisticated, than
Butch Cassidy. They also have assembled a crew of diverse talents.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Founded fifty years earlier by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton. The
agency is America's first private detective outfit for hire. Pinkerton's logo,
a simple unblinking eye underlined by the words we never sleep,
adds a new term to the American lexicon, private eye.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
The Pinkertons embodied the modern age. They brought everything together, memoranda, files,
regional offices, photography.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Everything.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Butcher's wild Bunch and now wanted dead or alive. But
as usual, Butcher's planned ahead, keeping an attorney on retainer
to protect him and his men. Douglas Preston is Butch
Cassidy's lawyer. Whenever any of the Wild Budge gets in trouble,
it is Preston who defends them, usually with success. Preston
(20:40):
later becomes a state legislator and then the Attorney General
of Wyoming. Preston says that once upon a time, during
a saloon brawl, Cassidy saved his life and ingratitude, he
promised to defend Butch whenever the need should arise. After
the Civil War, or outlaws begin targeting trains, starting with
(21:04):
the Reno Brothers in eighteen sixty six and followed by
others such as Jesse James and Sam Bass. Then a
quick work of railroad express cars back with money and
lumbering through remote locations far from local posseas.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Most train robberies were successful. Everybody knew that banks got
a little more difficult, but trains were fairly easy to
rob because they hadn't put armed messengers on them. They
hadn't taken any precautions whatsoever with security.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Bush and his train robbers syndicate Bull the first train
robbery in the dissolate countryside of Wilcox, Wyoming in June
eighteen ninety nine.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
The flyer is coming down the tracks. They're about ready
to cross a wood trestle bridge, and we see a
couple guys with a lantern shaking it back and forth
to stop the train.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Usually it meant a washed out track or damage track ahead,
and the train should stop.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
Any engineers right in mind those we got to lock
up the brakes.
Speaker 8 (22:14):
The train stops before the trestle. The people on the
train are nervous. We don't stop trains in the middle
of the desert. But it just happened.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
The engineer thought that the bridge might have been washed out.
Little did he know that these were robbers.
Speaker 10 (22:32):
Up on the tracks, they pull apart passenger cars, separate
them from the engine and the car which carries the
sea Butcher.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The boys then surround the express car and shout to
the messenger inside that opened the door. Ernest Woodcock replies,
come in and get me.
Speaker 11 (22:55):
Is it a dud?
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Butcher answers, my lobbing a stick of dynamite under the car.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Got a dog.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
The blast blows out one side of the car. Woodcock
has thrown the entire length of the car and knocked groggy.
Harvey Logan jumps into the car and puts a revolver
to Woodcock's head, but yells at Logan let him alone.
A man with his nerve deserves not to be shot.
(23:28):
The gang then blows the safer part with still more dynamite,
too much. In fact, bonds and money are blown everywhere,
and the outlaws have to scurry about to gather together
some thirty thousand dollars in loot.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Alright, boys, we're gonna go.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
That's around one million in today's money. It's the most
spectacular robbery the West has ever seen. Later, a special
train is dispatched to the scene from Cheyenne one hundred
and twenty miles away. The train carries railroad detectives, Binkerton Detectives,
(24:11):
and a posse with horses. Lawman rendezvous at Wilcox and
then set out upon the trail of the Wild Bunch.
Here's historian David Eisenbach.
Speaker 11 (24:25):
If they could nail Butch Cassidy, no matter how much
money they and resources they devoted to this, the theme
of the agency would become so great that it would
pay off in the long run with other jobs that
they would get, and they would literally go.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
To the ends of the earth to do it.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
The Binkerton's put two of their best operatives, Charlie Seringo
and w O Sales, on the assignment. These pros don't
follow hoof prints in the dirt. Instead, they begin methodically
tracking serial numbers on the banknotes stolen at Wilcox. Soon
the stolen begins a surface in towns across the region. Unintentionally,
(25:05):
the Wild Bunch members are illuminating in their own trail.
Speaker 8 (25:08):
Because of the dynamite blowing it up. A whole bunch
of the bills had cuts on the bottom, and so
they knew that if they got one of the bills
that had a cut in a certain way it was
from this robbery.
Speaker 9 (25:20):
All of this stuff worked against these antiquated horsepowered cowboys
who were trying to steal this money. You know, they're
up against serial numbers, no contest.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
One by one, the hideouts for the Wild Bunch have
been penetrated more by nineteen hundred, several members of the
Wild Bunch have been killed or captured. Thanks to a tip.
Butch nearly escapes captured by a Pinkerdon detective and aside,
it's time to call it quits.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
It's like a noos getting tighter and tighter and smart
enough to understand this. He's smart enough to see that
now all of the Pinkerton's resources are focused on the
Wild Bunch and they're never going to give up. They
won't stop.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
And you're listening to one heck of a story about
Butch cassidy as being told by doctor Roger McGrath, who
is a regular contributor here in Now American Stories. You
can also hear him and he's appeared on and a
number of History Channel documentaries as well. And my goodness,
what we learned is because he was born in eighteen
sixty six, well, Butch Cassidy was running up against a
(26:39):
new era, and as the West well got less wild
over time, as transportation and moneyed interest and formal interests
started to make these towns more legitimate, it became more
and more difficult for Butch Cassidy to pull off his crimes.
And then we hear about the advent of the Kretains.
(27:01):
Of course, these kinds of resources and tools could not
be matched by Butch Cassidy and his gang, the Wild Bunch,
and by nineteen hundred, as McGrath said, the noose was
getting tighter for Butch. When we come back the final
part of this story, the story of Butch Cassidy and
the story of the wild West becoming teamed here on
(27:24):
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
and with the story of Butch Cassidy. Let's return to
Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Working with the lawyer Douglas Preston, buch agrees to meet
with Union Pacific representatives to negotiate a truce. The railroad
will drop charges against him in exchange for him working
as our road road express card. To avoid any chance
of treachery, Butch asks that Preston bring the railroad officials
(28:08):
to the remote lost Soldier stage station at the base
of Green Mountain in Wyoming. The railroad contingent, who are
ready to make a deal, Well, that contingent is delayed
and root by a storm. And when the hour of
the rendezvous comes and goes without Preston and without the
Union Pacific representatives showing up, Butch is left alone and
(28:33):
thinking has been stood up or worse, set up in
what would have been an historic meeting. Butch becomes impatient
and leaves behind an angry note, damn you, Preston, you
double across me. I waited all day, but you didn't
show up. Tell the up to go to hell and
(28:55):
you can go with them. As a result of what
Butcher believes to be the Union Pacific's treachery, he decides
to strike against the railroad as soon as possible. On
a warm evening in August nineteen hundred, the boys stop
the Union Pacific at Tipton, Wyoming. Butch finds that the
(29:15):
messenger inside the express card is none other than the
clerk from the previous Wolcock robbery, Ernest Woodcock. Again, the
brave messenger refuses to open the door, seeing the wild
bunches dynamite, though the conductor convinces Woodcock to comply this time.
(29:37):
The outlaws then dynamite the safe and take an estimated
fifty five thousand. Butch now thinks he should leave the
once wide open American West and try his luck in
South America. Here's historian Gerald Copan.
Speaker 12 (29:55):
Butch wants to go to a place that's more like
the Western United States was, say, twenty years before, where
you don't have the pinkertons to worry about, and where
law enforcement isn't quite as effective.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Before he leaves, but Sundance and three of the core
members of the Wild Bunch, Rendezvous and the Roaring Candle
move down of Fort Worth, Texas to live it up
in Hill's half acre the red light district. Decked out
like the businessmen they are robbing, the five men commemorate
their adventure by posing for a group photograph. Ironically, for
(30:36):
the master planner, it will be this relatively new technological
innovation that will result in the biggest blunder of an
otherwise brilliant criminal career.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
The photographer put this photograph in his window as advertisement
for his skill. Unfortunately, a local lawman goes by, recognizes
one of the boys in the photo and soon that
photo is circulated throughout the Pinkerton Detective Agency and.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Throughout the West.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
They made flyers with the pictures of Butch, Cassidy, the
Sundance Kid, all the wild bunch. They plastered those pictures
up everywhere, and they had them in the hands of
all their operatives. Now, indeed, you couldn't escape the Eye
that Never slept, because it really had you.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Wich splits up the game, and by February nineteen one, Cassidy, Sundance,
and his mysterious girlfriend, the Absolute Kno get in a
place spend several weeks living the high life in the
modern metropolis of New York City. From there, they leave
(31:53):
on a steamship for Argentina.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
It seemed like the chance to start over, to reinvent themselves.
The old days are over. Butch and Sundance get out
just in time.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Two years after Butch and Sundance leave for Argentina, Edwin
Porters The Great Train Robbery, one of the first motion pictures,
is captivating New York audiences in nineteen three.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
By nineteen oh three, the story of the Wild West,
the story of Butch and Sundance, has already become fodder
from mass entertainment. So famous is the Wild Bunch That
Buffalo Bill Cody in his Wild West Show, which is
playing not only all across America but to the crown
heads of Europe, features one of their train robberies. I mean,
(32:51):
I think to the American public, Butch and Sundance are gone.
It's over. That's why they're making movies. It's a show.
It's a show.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
How the winner of nineteen three Pinkerton Informants in Pennsylvania
intercept a letter Sundance sins to his family.
Speaker 6 (33:09):
In South America. But Cassidy may have forgotten about the Pinkertons.
But the Pinkertons certainly had not forgotten about Butchcassidy. They
were still employing every tool and every method at their
disposal to bring him to justice. That included intercepting mail.
Speaker 9 (33:22):
I need to send a telegram to Argentina Putscathidy has
been decided.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
On the run from Argentine authorities and Anita cash. Butch
and Sundance returned to what they know best. Along with
Eda place. They take ten thousand from the National Bank
in Central Argentina and twenty thousand from bank in Rio
guai Lagos. In nineteen seven at a place, returns to
(33:51):
the United States for medical treatment, and Buts and Sundance
rob a mule train with a payroll for the Alpoka
mind in southern Bolivia. Within hours of the hest, the
telegraphic choirs begin humming. Even in the wilds of South America,
the civilizing forces of westward expansion have caught up with
(34:13):
Butch and Sundance. Every town in the area is supplied
with descriptions of what they call Bandito Hiaqui. Butch makes
a mistake of taking not only the gold but also
a big, silver, gray mule. Some time later, Butch and
Sundance right into the village of San Vicenti, where a
(34:35):
hotel owner recognizes the mule and grows suspicious. While his
wife prepares a mule for Butch and Sundance, he rides
to alert a nearby troop of Bolivian cavalry.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
He led three people down to this home. One of
the soldiers went on to the patio drew his weapon.
Butch saw his silhouette through the window and pulled out
his six gun and shot the guy dead. First person,
(35:13):
the only person that Butcher ever killed.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
Meanwhile, the word goes out and other residents of the town,
heavily armed, now come to surround the house.
Speaker 9 (35:25):
They're surrounded. They're not going anywhere. There's no way they're
getting out of there.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
A shooting because General Butch and Sundance that put their
winchesters in extra ammunition across the patio, and now Sundance
makes a dash for them. He miraculously gets to the
rifles and ammo unscathed. Put On his return, Dash is
hit by several rounds and drops to the ground. Butch
(35:54):
runs out and drags him back to Coved. The two
continue fighting, but Sundance is fading fast and dies. Butch
has one round left. With that last bullet, he shoots himself.
Butch Cassidy, the one time Mormon boy named Robert Leroy Parker,
(36:16):
is dead at forty two years old. You are laid
to rest in unmarked Bolivian graves. But there are some
who believe these famous outlaws had not yet met their end.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Almost immediately stories began that they hadn't been killed in Bolivia.
We don't want the outlaws to die, We certainly don't
want them to die the way Butch and Sundance died
as wild as they were as bad as they were,
still represented something that Americans embrace, that wild freedom and
(36:59):
when they're a whole West has gone.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks as
always to Roger McGrath, the author of Gunfighters, High Women,
and Vigilantes Violence on the Frontier. He's a US Marine,
former history professor at UCLA, and doctor. McGrath has appeared
on numerous History Channel documentaries. Were grateful to have him
(37:27):
as a regular contributor, a regular voice here in our
American Stories. And what a story he told here the
death of the West, at least to outlaws as the
legitimate types of businesses started to close in on the
wild bunch, the gangs and the criminals and outlaw mentality
(37:47):
that had governed much of the West before and in
the end these guys had no choice. Butch cassidy felt
like the Wild West had left him, so he was
looking for new frontiers, continue his life of crime, going
to Argentina and ending up killing himself in Bolivia. The
Wild West Untamed. The story of Butch Cassidy is told
(38:11):
by Roger McGrath here on our American stories,
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
When people think of Butch Cassidy, they often imagine Paul
Newman's character from the famous movie Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid, made in nineteen sixty nine with Robert Redford.
But the real story of Butch Cassidy is the story
(00:31):
of a Western godfather of sorts who brought organization to
a world of unorganized crime. Here to tell the story
is Roger McGrath. Roger is the author of Gunfighters, Hollyman
and Vigilantes Violence on the Frontier. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Butch Cassidy, the last great outlaw of the American West,
is born Robert Leory Parker in Beaver, Utah, on Friday
the thirteenth in April eighteen sixty six to a family
of Mormon immigrants. He is the first of thirteen children
born to two of the earliest Mormon settlers, Maximillion and
(01:12):
Anne Parker. In eighteen seventy nine, Maximillion buys a homestead
in Circle Valley, and thirteen year old Robert Leroy, or
Roy as he is called, is not old enough to
help support the family and is sent off to work
at a nearby ranch. Here's Tom Hatch, author of The
(01:32):
Last Outlaws.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Bob Parker was the oldest of thirteen kids, and so
he became the surrogate father, and he would take care
of the kids. Bob was like a big kid himself,
and he was throughout his whole life. He was a
very gregarious man who made friends wherever he went because
of his personality. His mother homeschooled the kids, mostly on
(01:58):
the Bible. She would hope services there. He absolutely adored
his mother.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yale force, wins and droughts make life on the Parker
homestead a struggle. Maximilian decides to homestead additional acreage in
the valley, but rights to the new property are contested
by another settler. By Mormon custom, the dispute is mediated
by the local church bishop. The bishop awards the land
(02:26):
to the other settler, who has thought more faithful to
the church. Maximilion is furious. Young Roy is furious also.
He feels the Mormon religion has been used to cheat
his family out of their land. Ray sets out to
support his family by hurrying out again, this time at
(02:48):
Jim Marshall's Ranch. During Roy's second season at Marshall's Ranch,
he meets a man who would forever alter the direction
of his life all time, Cattile Rustler Mike Cassidy. Here's
ujah historian, Ken Verduia.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
Mike Cassidy. He's a well known horseman, and he's great
with a revolver, an excellent shot and marksman, and Cassidy
takes a liking to Little Bobby Parker teaches him how
to really ride a horse, teaches him how to handle
a revolver, how to become a good marksman, and more importantly,
Mike Cassidy shows him how to cut corners. There's big
(03:31):
cattle operations, and they'll never miss it if one or
two or ten of the herd gets cut away and
goes to another place.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
And Somber of eighteen eighty four or at Parker is
eighteen years old and full grown, stands five foot nine
weys one hundred and sixty five pounds. He's described as friendly,
good natured, loyal, and generous. He also has an infectious
grin and as a natural leader. A ranch cowboy says
Rory can ride around a tree at full speed and
(04:04):
put every bullet from his revolver into a three hand circle.
Mike Cassidy has taught the kid well. His wrestling soon
becomes known to the local authorities, though, and he leaves
for the gold mining boom town of Tell Your Ride, Colorado.
Some claim the town got its name from a quick
(04:25):
pronunciation of tail your Ride. For a young man seeking adventure,
Rory has come to the right place, rugged frontiersman, packed
teller rides, famed saloons, gambling halls, and houses of ill repute.
Here's historians of the Old West, Paul Hutton and Tom Hatch.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
Robert Parker goes to a world that couldn't be more different.
This is the wild boomtown world of the mining camp.
So a lot of gambling, a lot of drinking, lot
of prostitution, a lot of young men heavily armed and
fueled by alcohol.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
He went in there with a Mormon mind, and within
a week or two, I'm sure he'd been in every
saloon there, and he learned how to drink with the
best of them, and he gambled with the best of them.
And he didn't feel comfortable in Mormon country, but he
felt comfortable until Your Ride.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Rory Land's a grueling job running a back train of
mules all in Goldman silver or from the mines to
the mills.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
He soon wearies of the drudgery going in the mines
each and every day. Robert Parker looks at that as
a sucker's bet. You're coming out bone where you could
die down there, and what have you earned at the
end of the day. But on the corner is the
San Miguel bank.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
Ry.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
With two of his new friends, elapsed Mormon named Matt
Warner and Warner's brother in law Tom McCarty, pulls his
first major criminal job, the robbery of the San Miguel
Valley Bank of Tillery Ride on June twenty fourth, eighteen
eighty nine. The most attempts at robbing banks in the
(06:17):
Old West feel miserably because of poor planning or no
planning at all. Roy is undeterred by the odds against him,
and for good reason.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
From the very beginning, he had a methodology. He wasn't
just one of these wild writers like the movies make
so famous. He was very misonical, He was very careful,
He was very intelligent.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Parker knew it's not just about where the money is,
but knowing when it will be at its peak? When
will the cash arrive? Who handles the cash, how many
people are in the building at the time when the
cash is at its peak? And more importantly than that,
(07:08):
how will I make my escape?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
And you've been listening to the story of Robert Parker,
sometimes called Roy, but as we've come to know him,
the story of Butch Cassidy, as told by doctor Roger McGrath.
When we come back, more of the story of Butch
Cassidy here on our American Stories. Lihabib here the host
(07:33):
of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're
bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from
our big cities and small towns. But we truly can't
do the show without you. Our stories are free to
listen to, but they're not free to make. If you
love what you hear, go to Ouramerican Stories dot com
and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot.
(07:56):
Go to Ouramerican Stories dot com and we continue with
our American Stories and the story of but Cassidy as
told by Roger McGrath. Let's pick up where we last
(08:17):
left off.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Roy Parker's accomplice, Tom McCarty is an old hand at
bank robbery, and he impresses upon Roy the importance of
not only planning each step of the robbery, but also
each step of the getaway. Several weeks before robbery, Roy
will train and hardened horses to be used in the getaway.
(08:42):
Blooded animals are selected, grain fit, and exercised rigorously. When
the first relay has reached, Rory switches to thorobreds it
wle to maintain a swift pace over a long distance.
If necessary, a second and a third relay horses is used.
This masterstroke will become Ry Parker's signature technique. The robbery
(09:08):
of the bank an tell you right goes exactly as
plan and Ry and the others gallop out of town.
Here's Ken for Doria and True West magazine contributor Tom Ross.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
And this is the genius of Robert Parker. He had
planned the escape even better than he had planned the
whole cup.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
This is the first of his great escapades where they
wind up with big money. I mean, you walk away
from a bank with twenty thousand dollars and you're looking
at it what a cowboy might take him five or
ten years to make. If he saved every penny.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
This is a serious crime. It's one thing to take
a few cows or take a couple of horses, but
this is big time robbery. There's no going back.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
There's no going back.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Rorett Parker knows his deed will break the heart of
his pious mother and decides to deflect shame from his family.
He drops a family name and begins using the surname
Cassidy in honor of his mentor. He will later also
add the nickname Butch and become known to history his
(10:20):
Butch Cassidy. The steep canyons, an unforgiving terrain that make
up the fifteen hundred mile long stretch of wilderness that
runs from New Mexico to Montana, is known as the
Outlaw Trail. A series of hideouts on the trail are notorious,
with the names Robbers, Roost, Brown's Hole, and Hole in
(10:43):
the Wall.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
One of the benefits of being a Western outlaw is space.
The American West is vast. It's cut by canyons, mountain ranges,
river trails. A lot of places, there's only one way in,
and so it's easy to guard. It's easy to see
(11:08):
who's coming, and so these become natural fortifications for the
outlaw bands to hide in. And if you're a lawman,
and especially if you're just a civilian posse, you're not
going in there.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
It's suicide.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
In April eighteen ninety two, a couple of lawmen arrest
Butch for being in possession of three stolen horses. Now
Butch claims he purchased the horses fair and square, and
that seems to have been the case. However, the man
he had purchased them from had stolen the horses. In
(11:48):
July eighteen ninety four, is sentenced to two years in
the Wyoming State Penitentiary after serving eighteen months, which applies
for a pardon. William Richards, the governor of Wyoming, asks Cassidy,
will you give me your word that you're quit rustling?
(12:10):
But she replies, can't do that, Governor, because if I
gave you my word, I do only have to break it.
I'm in too deep now to quit the game. But
I'll promise you one thing, if you give me a pardon,
I'll keep out of Wyoming. Well, Cassidy's frankness wins over
(12:30):
Governor Richards. The governor signs the pardon, and in January
eighteen ninety six, Butch Cassidy walks out of the penitentiary
a free man. If Butch Cassidy was a minor outlaw
before he went to prison. Upon his release, he's determined
to make a name for himself. Butch begins to gather
(12:52):
together a group of outlaws who will become known as
the Wild Bunch. Among this band of strong personalities, Butch
is the clear leader. Here's Cassidy, bigerpher W C.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Jamison.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
There was no job that he couldn't do.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I think the others in the gang recognized his confidence,
recognized his leadership, and thought.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
That with this guy, we're going to be able to
do some cool things.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Butch hand picks each member of the gang and expects
the best from those who ride with him. The core
members include William Ilsey, Leay Harvey, Kit Curry, Logan Ben,
the tall Texan Kilpatrick, will News Carver, and lastly, the
(13:44):
twenty one year old introvert Harry Logobah, the man known
to history as the sun Dance Kid.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Sundance was born Harry Longabah about thirty miles north of Philadelphia,
and he grew up on the canals. He would work
probably twenty hours a day sometimes, and it would walk
twenty five miles each day. But Harry had dreams. He
paid one whole dollar for a library card, which was
(14:14):
quite a bit of money at that time to a
poor boy, and he read these pulp novels about Jesse
James and Buffalo Bill. This is where dreams of the
West came into his head.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
I think it's difficult to understand today the lure of
adventure that existed in the late nineteenth century, especially for
a young boy like Harry growing up in Pennsylvania. The
West offered everything that the society of the East seemed
to work against, and a lot of young men went
(14:51):
west in search of adventure.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
The twenty year old Longabat earns his nickname the Sundance
Kid after having served a year in the the Sundance,
Wyoming Jail for horse theft. In eighteen ninety two, Sundance
Kid and two accomplices rob a Great Northern Railroad train
at Malta, Montana. Accomplices are eventually captured, tried, and convicted,
(15:15):
but the Sundance Kid makes good his escape and is
introduced to Butch Cassidy on the Outlaw Trail.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Butch signed Sundance someone he could trust number one and
number two, someone he could bounce his ideas off of,
and they would go nowhere else.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Butch Cassidy's first robbery following his release from the Wyoming
State Penitentiary occurs in August eighteen ninety six at Mountain Puelier, Idaho.
As usual, butch escaper is conducted with impeccable execution, a
breathtaking escape, and not a single dead body.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
Butch understood one simple premise, he didn't have to kill people.
Some would go into a robbery and kill just silence voices.
Butch said, if my getaway is clean enough, I don't
have to silence voices.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
A station agent tries to telegraph price Utah the direction
the outlaws seemed to beheaded, but Cassidine Lay have cut
the wires. Cassidye Lay then escaped by a circuitous route
with fresh relays of horses, and eventually reached Brown's hole
(16:36):
some eight thousand dollars richer more than a quarter million today.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And you've been listening to Roger McGrath tell the story
Butch Cassidy and later in the segment of the Sundance
Kid and how they got together and it had to
do in the end with Butch Cassidy's talent, his managerial talent,
his leadership talent, and mastering not just the art of
robbing a bank, but more importantly mastering the getaway. And
(17:03):
these were big time bank robberies. This was not nickel
and dimes stuff. And as we learned, once you're in,
it's hard to get out of this life. And that's
back then and still today. You choose a life of crime,
and the people around you become well a part of
that choice as well, and then your entire lifestyle is
that choice. And we learned that here in the nineteenth
(17:25):
century where to go for adventure was the wild West,
and that indeed is where the Sun Dance Kid ended up.
He grew up in Philadelphia, of all places, but the
lure of adventure and the lure of that open country
and those dime store novels he read in the bookstore,
that's what got him to just pack his bags and
(17:47):
head west. When we come back more of the story
of Butch Cassidy as told by doctor Roger McGrath. Here
on our American story, and we continue with our American
(18:09):
stories and the story of Butch Cassidy. You're again to
continue with this story is Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
By eighteen ninety eight, news of the charismatic Cassidy and
his wild bunch begin to make headlines from San Francisco
to New York. But along with their success, as America
approaches the twentieth century, the once wild and free West
is being transformed. Thirty years of unprecedented expansion of fast
(18:40):
transportation and communication systems have connected a settled and civilized
East with the once wild and wooly American West. Powerful
railroad executives, mining barons, and cattle kings are tired of
being robbed by Western outlaw and turn into a powerful
(19:02):
ally to impose their own brand of law and order.
Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Here's historians of the American West,
Marshall Trimble and Andrew Nilson. They were a private detective agency.
Speaker 9 (19:20):
Therefore they weren't bound by the laws of regular lawmen.
Speaker 6 (19:25):
Bribery, deceit. Nothing is off the table for the Pinkertons,
and they are just as, if not more sophisticated, than
Butch Cassidy. They also have assembled a crew of diverse talents.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Founded fifty years earlier by Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton. The
agency is America's first private detective outfit for hire. Pinkerton's logo,
a simple unblinking eye underlined by the words we never sleep,
adds a new term to the American lexicon, private eye.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
The Pinkertons embodied the modern age. They brought everything together, memoranda, files,
regional offices, photography.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Everything.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Butcher's wild Bunch and now wanted dead or alive. But
as usual, Butcher's planned ahead, keeping an attorney on retainer
to protect him and his men. Douglas Preston is Butch
Cassidy's lawyer. Whenever any of the Wild Budge gets in trouble,
it is Preston who defends them, usually with success. Preston
(20:40):
later becomes a state legislator and then the Attorney General
of Wyoming. Preston says that once upon a time, during
a saloon brawl, Cassidy saved his life and ingratitude, he
promised to defend Butch whenever the need should arise. After
the Civil War, or outlaws begin targeting trains, starting with
(21:04):
the Reno Brothers in eighteen sixty six and followed by
others such as Jesse James and Sam Bass. Then a
quick work of railroad express cars back with money and
lumbering through remote locations far from local posseas.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Most train robberies were successful. Everybody knew that banks got
a little more difficult, but trains were fairly easy to
rob because they hadn't put armed messengers on them. They
hadn't taken any precautions whatsoever with security.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Bush and his train robbers syndicate Bull the first train
robbery in the dissolate countryside of Wilcox, Wyoming in June
eighteen ninety nine.
Speaker 8 (21:47):
The flyer is coming down the tracks. They're about ready
to cross a wood trestle bridge, and we see a
couple guys with a lantern shaking it back and forth
to stop the train.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Usually it meant a washed out track or damage track ahead,
and the train should stop.
Speaker 7 (22:08):
Any engineers right in mind those we got to lock
up the brakes.
Speaker 8 (22:14):
The train stops before the trestle. The people on the
train are nervous. We don't stop trains in the middle
of the desert. But it just happened.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
The engineer thought that the bridge might have been washed out.
Little did he know that these were robbers.
Speaker 10 (22:32):
Up on the tracks, they pull apart passenger cars, separate
them from the engine and the car which carries the
sea Butcher.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The boys then surround the express car and shout to
the messenger inside that opened the door. Ernest Woodcock replies,
come in and get me.
Speaker 11 (22:55):
Is it a dud?
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Butcher answers, my lobbing a stick of dynamite under the car.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Got a dog.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
The blast blows out one side of the car. Woodcock
has thrown the entire length of the car and knocked groggy.
Harvey Logan jumps into the car and puts a revolver
to Woodcock's head, but yells at Logan let him alone.
A man with his nerve deserves not to be shot.
(23:28):
The gang then blows the safer part with still more dynamite,
too much. In fact, bonds and money are blown everywhere,
and the outlaws have to scurry about to gather together
some thirty thousand dollars in loot.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Alright, boys, we're gonna go.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
That's around one million in today's money. It's the most
spectacular robbery the West has ever seen. Later, a special
train is dispatched to the scene from Cheyenne one hundred
and twenty miles away. The train carries railroad detectives, Binkerton Detectives,
(24:11):
and a posse with horses. Lawman rendezvous at Wilcox and
then set out upon the trail of the Wild Bunch.
Here's historian David Eisenbach.
Speaker 11 (24:25):
If they could nail Butch Cassidy, no matter how much
money they and resources they devoted to this, the theme
of the agency would become so great that it would
pay off in the long run with other jobs that
they would get, and they would literally go.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
To the ends of the earth to do it.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
The Binkerton's put two of their best operatives, Charlie Seringo
and w O Sales, on the assignment. These pros don't
follow hoof prints in the dirt. Instead, they begin methodically
tracking serial numbers on the banknotes stolen at Wilcox. Soon
the stolen begins a surface in towns across the region. Unintentionally,
(25:05):
the Wild Bunch members are illuminating in their own trail.
Speaker 8 (25:08):
Because of the dynamite blowing it up. A whole bunch
of the bills had cuts on the bottom, and so
they knew that if they got one of the bills
that had a cut in a certain way it was
from this robbery.
Speaker 9 (25:20):
All of this stuff worked against these antiquated horsepowered cowboys
who were trying to steal this money. You know, they're
up against serial numbers, no contest.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
One by one, the hideouts for the Wild Bunch have
been penetrated more by nineteen hundred, several members of the
Wild Bunch have been killed or captured. Thanks to a tip.
Butch nearly escapes captured by a Pinkerdon detective and aside,
it's time to call it quits.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
It's like a noos getting tighter and tighter and smart
enough to understand this. He's smart enough to see that
now all of the Pinkerton's resources are focused on the
Wild Bunch and they're never going to give up. They
won't stop.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
And you're listening to one heck of a story about
Butch cassidy as being told by doctor Roger McGrath, who
is a regular contributor here in Now American Stories. You
can also hear him and he's appeared on and a
number of History Channel documentaries as well. And my goodness,
what we learned is because he was born in eighteen
sixty six, well, Butch Cassidy was running up against a
(26:39):
new era, and as the West well got less wild
over time, as transportation and moneyed interest and formal interests
started to make these towns more legitimate, it became more
and more difficult for Butch Cassidy to pull off his crimes.
And then we hear about the advent of the Kretains.
(27:01):
Of course, these kinds of resources and tools could not
be matched by Butch Cassidy and his gang, the Wild Bunch,
and by nineteen hundred, as McGrath said, the noose was
getting tighter for Butch. When we come back the final
part of this story, the story of Butch Cassidy and
the story of the wild West becoming teamed here on
(27:24):
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
and with the story of Butch Cassidy. Let's return to
Roger McGrath.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Working with the lawyer Douglas Preston, buch agrees to meet
with Union Pacific representatives to negotiate a truce. The railroad
will drop charges against him in exchange for him working
as our road road express card. To avoid any chance
of treachery, Butch asks that Preston bring the railroad officials
(28:08):
to the remote lost Soldier stage station at the base
of Green Mountain in Wyoming. The railroad contingent, who are
ready to make a deal, Well, that contingent is delayed
and root by a storm. And when the hour of
the rendezvous comes and goes without Preston and without the
Union Pacific representatives showing up, Butch is left alone and
(28:33):
thinking has been stood up or worse, set up in
what would have been an historic meeting. Butch becomes impatient
and leaves behind an angry note, damn you, Preston, you
double across me. I waited all day, but you didn't
show up. Tell the up to go to hell and
(28:55):
you can go with them. As a result of what
Butcher believes to be the Union Pacific's treachery, he decides
to strike against the railroad as soon as possible. On
a warm evening in August nineteen hundred, the boys stop
the Union Pacific at Tipton, Wyoming. Butch finds that the
(29:15):
messenger inside the express card is none other than the
clerk from the previous Wolcock robbery, Ernest Woodcock. Again, the
brave messenger refuses to open the door, seeing the wild
bunches dynamite, though the conductor convinces Woodcock to comply this time.
(29:37):
The outlaws then dynamite the safe and take an estimated
fifty five thousand. Butch now thinks he should leave the
once wide open American West and try his luck in
South America. Here's historian Gerald Copan.
Speaker 12 (29:55):
Butch wants to go to a place that's more like
the Western United States was, say, twenty years before, where
you don't have the pinkertons to worry about, and where
law enforcement isn't quite as effective.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Before he leaves, but Sundance and three of the core
members of the Wild Bunch, Rendezvous and the Roaring Candle
move down of Fort Worth, Texas to live it up
in Hill's half acre the red light district. Decked out
like the businessmen they are robbing, the five men commemorate
their adventure by posing for a group photograph. Ironically, for
(30:36):
the master planner, it will be this relatively new technological
innovation that will result in the biggest blunder of an
otherwise brilliant criminal career.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
The photographer put this photograph in his window as advertisement
for his skill. Unfortunately, a local lawman goes by, recognizes
one of the boys in the photo and soon that
photo is circulated throughout the Pinkerton Detective Agency and.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Throughout the West.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
They made flyers with the pictures of Butch, Cassidy, the
Sundance Kid, all the wild bunch. They plastered those pictures
up everywhere, and they had them in the hands of
all their operatives. Now, indeed, you couldn't escape the Eye
that Never slept, because it really had you.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Wich splits up the game, and by February nineteen one, Cassidy, Sundance,
and his mysterious girlfriend, the Absolute Kno get in a
place spend several weeks living the high life in the
modern metropolis of New York City. From there, they leave
(31:53):
on a steamship for Argentina.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
It seemed like the chance to start over, to reinvent themselves.
The old days are over. Butch and Sundance get out
just in time.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Two years after Butch and Sundance leave for Argentina, Edwin
Porters The Great Train Robbery, one of the first motion pictures,
is captivating New York audiences in nineteen three.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
By nineteen oh three, the story of the Wild West,
the story of Butch and Sundance, has already become fodder
from mass entertainment. So famous is the Wild Bunch That
Buffalo Bill Cody in his Wild West Show, which is
playing not only all across America but to the crown
heads of Europe, features one of their train robberies. I mean,
(32:51):
I think to the American public, Butch and Sundance are gone.
It's over. That's why they're making movies. It's a show.
It's a show.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
How the winner of nineteen three Pinkerton Informants in Pennsylvania
intercept a letter Sundance sins to his family.
Speaker 6 (33:09):
In South America. But Cassidy may have forgotten about the Pinkertons.
But the Pinkertons certainly had not forgotten about Butchcassidy. They
were still employing every tool and every method at their
disposal to bring him to justice. That included intercepting mail.
Speaker 9 (33:22):
I need to send a telegram to Argentina Putscathidy has
been decided.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
On the run from Argentine authorities and Anita cash. Butch
and Sundance returned to what they know best. Along with
Eda place. They take ten thousand from the National Bank
in Central Argentina and twenty thousand from bank in Rio
guai Lagos. In nineteen seven at a place, returns to
(33:51):
the United States for medical treatment, and Buts and Sundance
rob a mule train with a payroll for the Alpoka
mind in southern Bolivia. Within hours of the hest, the
telegraphic choirs begin humming. Even in the wilds of South America,
the civilizing forces of westward expansion have caught up with
(34:13):
Butch and Sundance. Every town in the area is supplied
with descriptions of what they call Bandito Hiaqui. Butch makes
a mistake of taking not only the gold but also
a big, silver, gray mule. Some time later, Butch and
Sundance right into the village of San Vicenti, where a
(34:35):
hotel owner recognizes the mule and grows suspicious. While his
wife prepares a mule for Butch and Sundance, he rides
to alert a nearby troop of Bolivian cavalry.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
He led three people down to this home. One of
the soldiers went on to the patio drew his weapon.
Butch saw his silhouette through the window and pulled out
his six gun and shot the guy dead. First person,
(35:13):
the only person that Butcher ever killed.
Speaker 5 (35:17):
Meanwhile, the word goes out and other residents of the town,
heavily armed, now come to surround the house.
Speaker 9 (35:25):
They're surrounded. They're not going anywhere. There's no way they're
getting out of there.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
A shooting because General Butch and Sundance that put their
winchesters in extra ammunition across the patio, and now Sundance
makes a dash for them. He miraculously gets to the
rifles and ammo unscathed. Put On his return, Dash is
hit by several rounds and drops to the ground. Butch
(35:54):
runs out and drags him back to Coved. The two
continue fighting, but Sundance is fading fast and dies. Butch
has one round left. With that last bullet, he shoots himself.
Butch Cassidy, the one time Mormon boy named Robert Leroy Parker,
(36:16):
is dead at forty two years old. You are laid
to rest in unmarked Bolivian graves. But there are some
who believe these famous outlaws had not yet met their end.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Almost immediately stories began that they hadn't been killed in Bolivia.
We don't want the outlaws to die, We certainly don't
want them to die the way Butch and Sundance died
as wild as they were as bad as they were,
still represented something that Americans embrace, that wild freedom and
(36:59):
when they're a whole West has gone.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks as
always to Roger McGrath, the author of Gunfighters, High Women,
and Vigilantes Violence on the Frontier. He's a US Marine,
former history professor at UCLA, and doctor. McGrath has appeared
on numerous History Channel documentaries. Were grateful to have him
(37:27):
as a regular contributor, a regular voice here in our
American Stories. And what a story he told here the
death of the West, at least to outlaws as the
legitimate types of businesses started to close in on the
wild bunch, the gangs and the criminals and outlaw mentality
(37:47):
that had governed much of the West before and in
the end these guys had no choice. Butch cassidy felt
like the Wild West had left him, so he was
looking for new frontiers, continue his life of crime, going
to Argentina and ending up killing himself in Bolivia. The
Wild West Untamed. The story of Butch Cassidy is told
(38:11):
by Roger McGrath here on our American stories,
Host
Lee Habeeb
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