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Quick Facts
- NAME: Butch Cassidy
- OCCUPATION: Thief
- BIRTH DATE: April 13, 1866
- DEATH DATE: c. November 06, 1909
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Beaver, Utah
- PLACE OF DEATH: San Vicente, Bolivia
- Originally: Robert Leroy Parker
Best Known For
Videos see all videos
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Full Episode
The full biography of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Nice Guys
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, were the last outlaws of the Old West.
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Play NowButch Cassidy. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 07:27, May 23, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/butch-cassidy-9240908.
Butch Cassidy. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/butch-cassidy-9240908 [Accessed 23 May 2013].
"Butch Cassidy." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 23 2013, 07:27 http://www.biography.com/people/butch-cassidy-9240908.
"Butch Cassidy," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/butch-cassidy-9240908 [accessed May 23, 2013].
"Butch Cassidy," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/butch-cassidy-9240908 (accessed May 23, 2013).
Butch Cassidy [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 23] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/butch-cassidy-9240908.
Butch Cassidy, http://www.biography.com/people/butch-cassidy-9240908 (last visited May 23, 2013).
Butch Cassidy. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/butch-cassidy-9240908. Accessed May 23, 2013.
Synopsis
Butch Cassidy was born Robert Leroy Parker on April 13, 1866, in Beaver, Utah. In 1900, he partnered with Harry Longabaugh, nicknamed the “Sundance Kid,” to rob banks and trains as leaders of the Wild Bunch, a group of outlaws. They eluded police by escaping to South America. In 1906, they returned to crime. It is believed they were trapped and killed by police in Bolivia in 1909, but reports vary.
Early Years
Considered one of the great hustlers of the American West, Butch Cassidy was born George Leroy Parker on April 13, 1866, in Beaver, Utah. The oldest of 13 children in a poor Mormon family, Parker was a teenager when he left home in the hopes of carving out a better, more prosperous life than what his parents had been able to provide.
He found work on several different ranches and eventually befriended a rancher named Mike Cassidy, who'd had a reputation for stealing cattle and horses. Young Parker admired the elder Cassidy and, wanting to emulate his friend and not disrespect his family, changed his name to Butch Cassidy.
Young Outlaw
By all accounts Cassidy was a charming thief, who was well-liked and who never, it's believed, killed anyone. His first taste of a major robbery came in June 1889, when he and three other cowboys made off with more than $20,000 from the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado.
After purchasing a ranch of his own in Dubois, Wyoming, in 1890, Cassidy continued to rustle cattle and horses. In 1894 the law caught up to him, and he was jailed for two years for the crime.
Despite his criminal background, Cassidy had a reputation for keeping his word. As one story goes, on the night before he was to begin his sentence, Cassidy asked to be released, promising he'd return to jail the following day. Authorities took him at his word and let him go, and Cassidy returned to them the following morning.
Upon his full release in 1896, Cassidy resumed his life as a criminal. With several other well-known outlaws, including Harry Longabaugh (a.k.a. the "Sundance Kid"), William Ellsworth Lay ("Elzy Lay"), Ben Kilpatrick (the "Tall Texan") and Harvey Logan ("Kid Curry") -- a group known as “the Wild Bunch” -- Cassidy embarked on what is considered the longest stretch of successful train and bank robberies in American history.
Beginning with an August 1896 bank robbery in Montpelier, Idaho, in which the gang made off with more than $7,000, the group hit banks and trains in South Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada and Wyoming. Between their robberies the men hid out at the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass, located in Johnson County, Wyoming, where a number of outlaw gangs had their hideouts.
With each new robbery the Bunch became better known, and better liked by an American public eager to read about their exploits.Their robberies too became bigger. One of the largest was a $70,000 haul from a train just outside Folsom, New Mexico.
Unable to stop the Bunch, the Union Pacific Railroad went so far as to propose to Cassidy a pardon in exchange for the promise of ending his robberies and coming to work for the company as an express guard.
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
View groupButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid led the Wild Bunch through a series of bank and train robberies across the American Old West. Their exploits served as the basis for the 1967 Oscar-winning film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid 2 people in this group
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Wild West
View groupThe Wild West holds a special place in American history—Western films depict it as a place where the rules didn't apply, and where scores were settled with gun slinging and shootouts. The colorful characters who made up the old West were men, women, cowboys, Indians, sheriffs just plain outlaws. Though we've come to have a more nuanced understanding of the good and the bad of the old West, we can still learn from the stories of the people who made it and who wrote about what it was.
Wild West 24 people in this group
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Name Changers
View groupIn entertainment, where the line between fiction and reality is often blurry, names are a crucial part of a celebrity's image. Stage names are often chosen to make an actor or musician's name easier to pronounce or remember, or simply to make it sounds more attractive. Here are famous celebrities who have changed their names.
Name Changers 236 people in this group
