Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – two names that roll off the tongue like peanut butter and jelly. Two people who are inexorably linked together to the point where one can seldom mention one without also bringing up the other. Sure, Butch Cassidy was the more famous one, but the Sundance Kid, or Harry Longabaugh, to give him his real name, was never far behind – the Batman and Robin of the Wild West, if Batman and Robin turned to a life of crime.
But they weren’t always attached at the hip. In fact, as you will find out, Cassidy wasn’t even Sundance’s most frequent partner-in-crime. Harry Longabaugh had a whole life before joining up with the Wild Bunch and becoming a sidekick to the Old West’s most infamous outlaw.
Early Years
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was born in the spring of 1867 in the village of Mont Clare, Pennsylvania, the youngest of five children of Josiah Longabaugh and Annie Place.
Located on the bank of the Schuylkill River, Mont Clare was a boatman’s community where most of the workers had various jobs along the canal, mainly used to ship coal from upstate Pennsylvania to Philadelphia. Josiah Longabaugh worked on the canal and so did his brother, Michael. In fact, Michael Longabaugh, the more successful sibling, had his own store and his canal boats which he used to ship cargo as far as Boston and New York.
When they were young, Harry and his brother Harvey both worked for their uncle Michael. Then, by the 1880 federal census, they had already left home and were hired as live-in servants. Harry Longabaugh, 13 years old at the time, was living with the Wilmer Ralston family in West Vincent Township, Chester County, helping to raise horses on their farm.
By 1882, Harry was back living with his family, this time in Phoenixville, where he enrolled at the Gay Street School and attended the First Baptist Church where his maternal grandfather was a deacon. Although Harry’s education was sporadic, it was said that he was well-read and had his own library card which he used mainly to check out, what else, Wild West adventures.
Later that same year, Harry left Pennsylvania and moved to Cortez, Colorado, where he worked on the homestead of a cousin named George Longenbaugh. He stayed there until 1886 when the 19-year-old Harry got the irrepressible itch to head out into the wild blue yonder and strike out on his own.
First, he worked for a cattle ranch in Wyoming, but this didn’t last long. It seems that Longabaugh had to make a hasty retreat to evade the law, possibly after robbing an old man of $80, which would make this his first crime that we know of. There are no official records to corroborate it. All the information comes from a letter written by one of Harry’s co-workers. However, he definitely committed a theft the following year, one which would turn Harry Longabaugh into the Sundance Kid.
Harry Becomes Sundance
After fleeing Wyoming, Longabaugh made his way to the Montana Territory where he found work as a rancher again, this time at the N Bar N Ranch. This gig didn’t last long, either, although this time it wasn’t Harry’s fault. It just so happened that the winter of 1886-1887 was one of the harshest in the history of the Western United States. Known as the Big Die-Up, it had a catastrophic effect on the cattle industry as millions of livestock froze to death. The N Bar N Ranch alone lost over 20,000 heads of cattle to the cold, so it had to lay off a bunch of its ranchers, Longabaugh included.
As Harry pondered his next move, he passed through a little town in the northeastern corner of Wyoming called Sundance, the seat of Crook County. There, he let temptation get the better of him and stole a horse alongside a saddle and a revolver belonging to a man named Alonzo Craven from the nearby Three V Ranch. Then, Longabaugh proceeded to Miles City about 300 miles away where he was arrested and spent some time in the local jail until the sheriff of Sundance, James Ryan, came to pick him up.
Now came the confusing part because, for reasons known only to him, once he had Harry in custody, Sheriff Ryan decided to take the scenic route back home. The duo intended to travel to St. Paul, Minnesota by train, then continue to Rapid City, South Dakota, and, finally, take the stagecoach to Sundance, thus turning a 300-mile distance into a 2,000-mile journey. However, somewhere around Duluth, Minnesota, Harry successfully escaped by picking the locks of his restraints and jumping out the bathroom window from the moving train.
Once he was free, Longabaugh made the confusing decision of returning to Miles City, the same place where he was picked up in the first place. He was arrested, once again, in nearby Powderville, Montana, and Sheriff Ryan came to take him to Sundance once more. Now they went straight by coach – no more long train rides – and Harry was secured with steel shackles to make sure he stayed put.
This time, Longabaugh made it to Sundance where he stood trial on three counts of grand larceny – one for the horse, one for the saddle, and one for the revolver. He took a deal and pled guilty to stealing the horse in exchange for dropping the other two charges and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
At the start of his sentence, many people, reporters included, referred to Harry as “the Kid” because he was only 20 years old. When he was released on February 5, 1889, the Sundance Gazette wrote: “The term of ‘Kid” Longabaugh expired on Tuesday morning, and the young man at once hired himself to the Hills, taking the coach for Deadwood.” But that name didn’t have the “je ne sais quoi” to be either memorable or intimidating. So, while in jail, Harry adopted a new moniker and became the Sundance Kid.
When Sundance got out of jail, he wanted a fresh start so he headed to Canada. He had a friend, Ebb Johnson, who worked as the foreman at the Bar U Ranch near Calgary and hired Harry as a horse breaker.
Things seemed to go well for Sundance here. He was well-liked and good at his job, described as “a splendid rider and a top-notch cow hand.” He stayed on for a few years, appearing in the 1891 census. It wasn’t until 1892 that Sundance left the ranch when he received a better offer – a partnership in the Grand Central Hotel Saloon in Calgary alongside a man named Frank Hamilton. But although this sounded like a better offer on paper, it wasn’t one in reality. Hamilton wasn’t exactly a people person and had already chased a few partners away. His relationship with Sundance was short-lived, too, as the two got into a fight over an unpaid debt that Hamilton owed Longabaugh. Once the debt was settled, the partnership was dissolved, but Sundance didn’t go back to the Bar U Ranch. Instead, he decided it was time to return to the States.
The Failed Train Robbery
During the winter of 1892, Sundance found himself in Malta, Montana, alongside two acquaintances named Bill Madden and Harry Bass. After a few drinks together, the trio decided it would be a good idea to rob a train. So they did. On November 29, they boarded the No. 23 Express out of St. Paul, Minnesota. But even though they successfully managed to subdue the engineer, the conductor, and the other railroad employees, criminal masterminds they were not. They didn’t take into account that the train left St. Paul on a Sunday, so the banks weren’t open, or that none of the people aboard knew the combination to the large safe in the express car. Instead, the robbers only had access to a smaller safe and made off with the grand sum of $63.80. Worse still, they then returned to Malta to get drunk and were arrested a few days later alongside two other men who were with them at the time.
Although Madden and Bass received hefty sentences, dumb luck protected Sundance on this occasion. With five suspects in custody, the sheriff brought in the conductor to identify the men who robbed the train. But he never saw Sundance’s face so he only ID’d the other two. Meanwhile, Madden confessed to the robbery and implicated Bass and a guy called “Lounghbo,” but here’s the thing – when he was arrested, Sundance gave his name as J. E. Ebaugh and the police didn’t make the connection that he was the third man. So they let him go and, by the time they figured it out, Sundance had got the hell out of Dodge. A $500 reward was offered for his capture which included a good description of what he looked like at the time. It said:
“Description – Height 5 feet 11 inches. Dark complexion, short dark mustache, dark hair, Age, about 25 years. Slender and erect, with slight stoop in head and shoulders. Short upper lip, exposing teeth when talking. Teeth white and clean with small dark spot on upper front tooth to right of center. Wore a medium-sized black soft hat. Dark double-breasted sack coat. Dark close-fitting pants with blue overalls. When last seen was riding bay horse branded Half Circle Cross on left shoulder.”
Sundance managed to evade the law and perhaps decided that he wasn’t cut out for a life of crime…at least for a little while. As far as we know, he stayed out of trouble for the next few years, working as a ranchhand again throughout Montana. By 1895, he was back at the N Bar N Ranch, where he met a fellow cowboy named Harvey Logan, better known as Kid Curry.
Harry Joins the Wild Bunch
Logan was a member of a loosely affiliated gang of outlaws known as the Wild Bunch. Although Butch Cassidy was the most infamous member, Kid Curry was often described as the “wildest of the bunch,” with at least 11 kills to his name, nine of which were lawmen.
Since the partnership between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is so iconic, we’d like to present you with a thrilling story of how they first met each other or the first job they pulled together, but the simple truth is that we have no idea. Next we heard of Sundance, he was already a member of the Wild Bunch, leaving the rancher life behind him for good. We can only presume that Kid Curry made the introductions and the rest, as they say, is history.
For a long time, Sundance had been implicated in a bank robbery in Belle Fourche, South Dakota, alongside Kid Curry and three other men, perhaps his first heist as part of the Wild Bunch. This, however, turned out not to be the case, as a letter revealed that Sundance was still working on a ranch in Wyoming at the time.
Sundance’s first known caper with the Wild Bunch was a failed attempt to rob the bank in Red Lodge, Montana, alongside Curry and a guy named Walter Punteney. But unbeknownst to the trio, they were being tailed by a posse still on the lookout for the men responsible for the Belle Fourche robbery. The posse confronted the gang one night outside the town of Lavina, Montana, and, after a brief gunfight where Curry took one shot in the wrist, all three criminals were arrested and taken to the jail in Deadwood.
In lock-up, the men met up with another member of their gang, Tom O’Day, and together, they managed to overpower the deputy one Sunday evening when he foolishly decided to check up on them accompanied only by his wife. They made a run for it and, although O’Day and Punteney were recaptured a few days later, Curry and Sundance made another clean escape.
The next year of Sundance’s life is, again, a mystery, although most historians agree that he likely spent it roaming through Nevada. Some say Sundance laid low with a cousin of his named Seth Longabaugh, others that he remained with Kid Curry and partnered with another Wild Bunch member, Flatnose George Currie (no relation), to commit a series of robberies throughout the state.
One crime we can ascribe to the Wild Bunch was the robbery of the Union Pacific train near Wilcox, Wyoming, on June 2, 1899. The gang made off with anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 in cash and gold. At least six of them were in on the heist, including the most prominent members of the bunch – Flatnose George Currie, Kid Curry, his brother Lonnie Logan, Ben Kilpatrick aka the “Tall Texan,” Will “News” Carver, and, of course, the Sundance Kid, although we’re not sure about Butch Cassidy.
The key to their success was dynamite and lots of it. First, to blow up a bridge to stop the train, then to gain access to the express car and, finally, to the safe. After the heist, the gang split up, with Sundance riding out alongside his most frequent crime collaborators, Kid Curry and Flatnose. A 14-man posse led by Sheriff Josiah Hazen caught up to the trio and a shootout ensued. Despite being 14 against 3, the lawmen backed down after one of the robbers shot and killed Sheriff Hazen, and the Sundance Kid was able, once again, to make his getaway.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
A year later, Kid Curry wanted to round up the boys and rob another Union Pacific train, this time in Tipton, Wyoming. And they did…on August 29, 1900, but as far as we know, Sundance had no hand in it because he was taking part in another score with Butch in Nevada. So, finally, it seems that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were riding together. However, we should call them the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy. At least in his own Biographics video, Sundance should get top billing.
Anyway, the duo went to Winnemucca, Nevada, a town whose bank proudly boasted in the newspapers that it always kept $82,000 in capital on hand. That kind of statement was like catnip to men like Sundance & Butch, and fellow Wild Bunch member News Carver who joined them on this little expedition.
The trio rode into Winnemucca in September and spent a few days there, getting to know the area. Then, on September 19, once they had the lay of the land, the gang hitched their horses in the alley behind the Winnemucca National Bank and went for a drink in the bar next door. Around noon, they rushed into the bank brandishing their guns.
It was a fast and well-planned operation that lasted less than five minutes. Sundance herded the hostages, Carver guarded the door, while Butch took the bank president to open the safe. They collected over $32,000 in gold coins and left through the backdoor where their horses were waiting for them.
The robbers headed east on a road that ran parallel to the railroad and the local lawmen actually caught up to them by riding a switcher locomotive and letting the bullets fly. The gunfight was brief, though, and ended when one of the robbers hit the engine’s steam pipe, leaving the law behind in a giant cloud of steam. An officer did wound Cassidy’s horse, but the gang had relay horses waiting for them further down the road and were able to make a hasty getaway out of the area unimpeded.
Who Were Those Guys?
Sundance and Cassidy felt that the United States had become too hot for them and that it was only a matter of time before they would end up dead or in prison. Hoping to avoid that, they decided to take the money they had and start a new life in another country. Maybe even go straight this time “just for the fun of it!” But before all that, they traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, where they had one last rendezvous with the rest of the gang. Well, the ones who were still available, anyway.
By November 1900, Sundance, Butch, Kid Curry, News Carver, and the Tall Texan were all in Fort Worth. That’s when they posed together for a famous photograph known simply as the “Fort Worth Five.” On one hand, it became one of the most iconic images of the Wild West. On the other hand, it also got plastered on wanted posters all over the country, making their escape harder.
After that brief reunion in Fort Worth, the members of the gang went their separate ways. Sundance, Cassidy, and Sundance’s long-term partner, Etta Place, traveled to New York City, hoping that they would be less recognizable on the East Coast, waiting for the right opportunity to flee the country. During that time, Sundance and Etta posed as married couple Harry and Ethel Place, while Cassidy was James Ryan, her brother.
The trio spent a few months in New York and departed the country on February 20, 1901, aboard the Herminius, a ship headed for Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sundance intended to renounce the life of the outlaw and become a law-abiding rancher. He and Butch bought land in Cholila, close to the border with Chile, and began building up their homestead. Their neighbors liked them and accepted them, and even the governor once spent a night at their ranch.
A letter that Butch wrote in August 1902 to a friend in America said that he owned “300 cattle, 1500 sheep, and 28 good saddle horses.” Sundance, too, feeling at ease with his new life, wrote to his sister in the States. Unfortunately, he didn’t suspect that the Pinkertons were monitoring her correspondence by bribing local clerks to read her mail. The detectives now knew that the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy were in Argentina, although they didn’t know the exact location.
In March 1903, Pinkerton agent Frank Dimaio arrived in the country looking for the criminal duo, and, even with the support of Argentinean law enforcement, it still took him a couple of years to track them down. Meanwhile, Sundance and Butch had no idea that they were in danger. Sundance and Etta still traveled back to the States, on occasion, as tourists.
But things changed drastically on February 14, 1905, when two Americans robbed the bank in Rio Gallegos, about 700 miles south of Cholila. Even today, there is ongoing debate if they were Sundance and Cassidy. Some historians are convinced it was them because who else would it be? But others don’t see why the duo would jeopardize their new lives like that. Did they need the money? Did they just get the itch again? Either way, the important part was that the Argentinean police believed that Sundance and Cassidy were responsible for the crime and wanted to arrest them.
Fortunately for them, they were on great terms with a local sheriff who tipped them off, so Sundance and Cassidy made quick arrangements to sell their ranch and in May 1905 went on the run again and crossed the border into Chile.
Sundance got into big trouble in the town of Antofagasta after killing a 24-year-old police officer named Arturo Gonzalez on August 21, 1905. The policeman tried to detain Sundance as he was leaving his hotel, and the latter shot him once at close range although, if you believe Sundance’s version, his gun discharged accidentally during the scuffle. Luckily for him, Butch had his back, and he enlisted the help of a US vice-consul named Frank Aller to sign a $50,000 bond, presumably fronted by Cassidy, and release Sundance under house arrest.
Unsurprisingly, the two fled town as soon as possible and made their way back to Argentina. At this point, they were outlaws again, so they might as well go the whole hog. On December 19, 1905, Sundance and Cassidy robbed a bank in Villa Mercedes alongside an unidentified third man. Local newspapers reported that the third man was Kid Curry, once again reunited with his former running mates. This, however, seemed unlikely given that Curry had been killed the previous year. Witnesses also saw a woman so it appears that Etta Place was still with them at this time, but she returned to the United States the following year, seemingly settling in San Francisco before vanishing without a trace.
By the end of 1906, both men were in Bolivia, working in the Concordia mines southeast of the capital of La Paz. It’s possible that they wanted to go straight again. However, according to a co-worker who befriended them, Percy Seibert, the duo had a habit of going on short trips and then always returning flushed with cash.
Eventually, they decided to go for one more big score and then, hopefully, disappear to start a new life elsewhere. On November 3, 1908, Sundance and Cassidy robbed the payroll of the Aramayo Mine near San Vicente. Things, however, went south fast. For starters, they were expecting to walk away with 80,000 pesos in plunder, but the mine workers were only carrying 15,000 pesos. Furthermore, a military regiment was in the area and arrived in San Vicente soon after the robbery. A local recognized the company mule that Sundance and Cassidy had commandeered to carry the loot and tipped off the military patrol in town.
On November 6, the soldiers surrounded the house where Sundance and Cassidy were hiding and a bitter gunfight ensued. Butch killed one of the soldiers, but it soon became clear that their luck had finally run out. During the night, as the Bolivian military kept a watch on the house, they heard several screams coming from inside the house, followed by two gunshots. And then…silence.
The next morning, soldiers entered the house and found the outlaws dead. Cassidy was sprawled on the floor, with one shot in the arm and one in the temple. The Sundance Kid was propped up against a ceramic jar, with multiple wounds in his arms and a fatal shot in his forehead. The military quickly concluded that Cassidy killed Sundance out of mercy and then, not wanting to end up in a Bolivian prison, turned the gun on himself. The outlaws were given a quick burial in the local cemetery the following day.
And that was the end of the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy. Or was it? Rumors of their survival sprang up immediately after their deaths and continue to this day. Despite many attempts, their graves were never located and the Bolivian authorities never positively identified the bodies as belonging to Sundance and Cassidy.
For over a century, a popular theory claimed that Sundance managed to return to the United States and live out the remainder of his years under the guise of a rancher named William Henry Long in Duchesne, Utah. This little notion, however, was shot down in 2009, thanks to that pesky DNA that found no match between the rancher and Sundance’s relatives. The idea still persists, though, with many choosing to believe that the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy, two of the biggest icons of the Wild West, managed to ride off into the sunset.
