Butch Cassidy
Butch Cassidy (1866–1911?) In U.S. history and legend, assumed name of Robert Leroy Parker, leader of the Wild Bunch, an outlaw gang consisting of Kid Curry, Harry Longbaugh (the Sundance Kid), Ben Kilpatrick (the Tall Texan), Harry Tracy, Elza Lay, Deaf Charley Hanks, and other criminals.
When the railroads hired the Pinkerton Agency to chase down Cassidy, he and Harry Longbaugh, along with Etta Place (who was likely a girl named Ann Bassett), fled to South America and purchased a ranch in Argentina. After a few years of trying to make it as ranchers, the pair again turned to their previous method of obtaining money, robbery.
According to one account, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed by Bolivian troops in 1911 in the village of San Vicente. But legend says they both escaped death. Cassidy is said to have returned to the United States and died in 1937, and the Sundance Kid is said to have lived to 1957.
Their romantic legend as thieves was used in the Hollywood movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
SOURCE:
Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow
Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante
