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Quick Facts
- NAME: Sundance Kid
- OCCUPATION: Thief
- BIRTH DATE: 1867
- DEATH DATE: c. November 06, 1908
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Mont Clare, Pennsylvania
- PLACE OF DEATH: San Vicente, Bolivia
- Originally: Harry Alonzo Longabaugh
- Nickname: Sundance Kid
Best Known For
Sundance Kid was an American criminal best known for his train robberies and bank heists with the Wild Bunch gang in the late 1890s and early 1900s.
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 NowSundance Kid. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 10:38, Jun 19, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/sundance-kid-9499214.
Sundance Kid. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/sundance-kid-9499214 [Accessed 19 Jun 2013].
"Sundance Kid." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 19 2013, 10:38 http://www.biography.com/people/sundance-kid-9499214.
"Sundance Kid," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/sundance-kid-9499214 [accessed Jun 19, 2013].
"Sundance Kid," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/sundance-kid-9499214 (accessed Jun 19, 2013).
Sundance Kid [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 19] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/sundance-kid-9499214.
Sundance Kid, http://www.biography.com/people/sundance-kid-9499214 (last visited Jun 19, 2013).
Sundance Kid. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/sundance-kid-9499214. Accessed Jun 19, 2013.
Synopsis
American criminal Sundance Kid, originally named Harry Longabaugh, was born in 1867 in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania. At age 15, he headed west and received his nickname when was arrested for stealing a horse in Sundance, Wyoming. After a couple of years in jail, Sundance Kid resumed a career in crime, robbing trains and banks. Named the Wild Bunch,
Contents
he and his conspirators went on the longest crime spree in the history of the American West. Sundance Kid eventually fled to South America where he continued his life of crime. Historians disagree on his death with some citing a shootout in Bolivia on November 3, 1908 while others suggest he returned to the U.S. under the name William Long and lived there until 1936.
Early Years
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was born in 1870 in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania. He was considered the fastest gunslinger in the Wild Bunch, a well-known gang of robbers and cattle rustlers that roamed the American West during the 1880s and 1890s.
Longabaugh was just 15 when he left home for good. He took his nickname from the Wyoming town of Sundance, where he was arrested for the only time in his life after stealing a horse. For the crime, Sundance served nearly two years in jail. Upon his release in 1889, he attempted to create an honest life for himself as a cowboy.
The Wild Bunch
By the early 1890s, Sundance was back to being an outlaw. Authorities fingered him for a train robbery in 1892, and five years later for a bank heist that he pulled off with a group that came to be known as the Wild Bunch. The gang largely consisted of Robert Parker (aka Butch Cassidy), Harry Tracy (“Elzy Lay”), Ben Kilpatrick (the “Tall Texan”) and Harvey Logan (“Kid Curry”). Together, the group embarked on the longest stretch of successful train and bank robberies in the history of the American West.
Among the men, Sundance was considered to be the fastest gunslinger, though historical evidence indicates he never killed anyone during the Wild Bunch’s run. The gang’s robberies were scattered around parts of South Dakota, New Mexico, Nevada and Wyoming. Between robberies, the men hid out at Hole-in-the-Wall Pass, located in Johnson County, Wyoming, where several outlaw gangs had their hideouts.
With each new robbery, the Wild Bunch became better known and well liked by an American public eager to read about their exploits. Their robberies also became bigger. One of the largest was a $70,000 haul from a train just outside Folsom, New Mexico.
Unable to stop the Wild Bunch, the Union Pacific Railroad hired the famed Pinkerton National Detective Agency to find and arrest Sundance and the rest of the gang. Perhaps sensing their run was over, Sundance and Cassidy pushed into South America, first to Argentina, where they tried to make it as honest farmers. With the pair was Etta Place, a former prostitute who’d become Sundance’s lover.
Final Years
An honest life, however, was not a good fit for either Sundance or Cassidy.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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