A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
On April 13, 1866, Robert LeRoy Parker was born to a poor pioneer family in Beaver, Utah Territory.
He didn’t use that name for long.
One of Utah’s earliest and most well-known criminals, Butch Cassidy became a notorious bank robber who traveled the West in the late 1800s, stealing upward of $70,000 at a time. He robbed banks and trains in the Intermountain West, and was one of the leaders of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang and the Wild Bunch.
Parker was the oldest of 13 children in a poor Latter-day Saint family. The family soon moved to the Circleville area of Piute County, and what is believed to be his boyhood home is still standing.
However, despite his criminal activity, Cassidy was not known to be violent and was actually well-liked by the American public, who enjoyed reading about his exploits in the newspaper. One such report was of a train robbery in southwestern Wyoming on June 2, 1899:
“Hole-in-Wall gang robs Utah train” read the headline with additional banner deks:
“Union Pacific passenger (train) dynamited and held up near Wilcox, Wyoming, today”
“Very daring and dangerous exploit”
“Outlaws a part of those on whose heads Governor Wells has fixed a price—Officers and citizens scouring the country—Train five hours late tonight”
Law enforcement usually was not organized enough to catch the Wild Bunch when they hit small-town banks, but the railroad companies eventually hired professionals like the Pinkerton detective agency and soon the outlaws had nowhere to hide.
Historians say Cassidy was forced to flee the U.S. Along with pal Harry Longabaugh, known as the “Sundance Kid,” and Longabaugh’s girlfriend Etta Place, the trio traveled first to Argentina and then to Bolivia, where Parker and Longabaugh are believed to have been killed in a shootout with the Bolivian Army in November 1908.
Or did they? That’s half the mystery of Butch Cassidy. Did he return home to live a quiet life somewhere in the West?
His life was immortalized in the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
Here are some fun stories from Deseret News archives about Parker/Cassidy and his life and exploits:
“Tropic old-timer remembers Butch Cassidy”
“Legend runs deep around wild Cassidy”
“Old text, new wrinkles: Did Butch Cassidy survive?”
“Lost Butch Cassidy manuscript found”
“About Utah: Little left of Butch’s life in Circleville”
“Butch Cassidy’s home rises from obscurity on U.S. 89”
“‘Butch Cassidy gang’ given pardon — with a 100-year-long condition”
