Wyoming’s Outlaw: The Sundance Kid

Sundance’s Trial in the original Crook County Courthouse, inside the Crook County Museum (Vannoy Photo)

According to most accounts, in November, 1908, Wyoming’s most famous outlaws, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, were reportedly killed in a gun battle in South America. But no one knows for sure.

Harry A. Longabaugh, aka The Sundance Kid, was born in 1867, in Pennsylvania. When he was 15, he came west, and began to work on various ranches in Colorado, Montana and Wyoming. In 1887, while traveling across Wyoming, he stole a gun, horse, and saddle from a cowboy there.

He was captured in Miles City, Montana, and sentenced to 18 months in the Sundance, Wyoming jail by Judge William L. Maginnis. While in jail there, he adopted the nickname ‘The Sundance Kid.’

From The Sundance Gazette, February 1889 Harry Longabaugh. who was released from our county jail last week, has had his citizenship right restored. Governor Moonlight having pardoned him a day before the expiration of his time.

Somewhere in his travels, Sundance met Butch Cassidy, aka Robert LeRoy Parker, and joined Cassidy’s gang, the Wild Bunch. They had a long run of successful train and bank robberies throughout the west. Including this one near Malta, Montana.

From The Cody Enterprise, July, 1901 Great Northern Passenger Train Held Up And Robbed In Broad Daylight – Great Falls, July 3.— The most daring train robbery in the history of the Great Northern Railway one which in dash and audacity brings to mind the work of the James-Younger gang in the days of their glory, occurred at 2:15 o’clock this afternoon six miles west of Malta. A meager report of the hold-up reached this city at 5 o’clock this afternoon. The news ran over the city like wildfire, and all kinds of exaggerated reports were in circulation. Telegrams, which began to arrive in the city at 7 o’clock, bore the first authentic news of the robbery, which seemed so nervy as almost to amount to a pipe dream.

The article gives a detailed description of the train robbery, and the fact the Longabaugh was one of the robbers.

Malta is a town of perhaps 100 people on the Great Northern, 160 miles east of Great Falls. When passenger train No. 3, westbound, pulled out of the depot at Malta this afternoon, Harry Longabaugh, one of the toughest members of the Curry gang yet on earth, was seen to swing onto the head end of the forward mail car. He is supposed to be the leader of the gang that did the hold-up. Six miles west of Malta the road runs along the Milk River. There is a high cut bank on the north side of the track. On the south side runs the river, which is heavily lined with brush. It appears that at that point the man on the train held the engineer up at the muzzle of a revolver. Two other men, who were waiting in the brush at that point, turned to the assistance of the man on the train, and an attack was made on the express car with dynamite. The car was blown open at the rear end and on the top. It was torn to pieces. The safe was blown open after three trials and everything in it was taken.

Seeing as how the safe and train car was destroyed by dynamite during the Wilcox Train Robbery in 1899, this seems to be the Mode of Operation of the Wild Bunch.

The story continues; The job took the robbers an hour. While it was in progress two of the men fired up and down the side of the train at everything in sight. The passengers were terror-stricken, and a number of the women of the train fainted, and general pandemonium reigned for an hour or more. People could not believe that a hold-up was in progress in broad daylight, and almost within sight of the station.

After the three robbers had secured the contents of the safe, they swam and forded the river, which is very low at that point to the south side. Then they mounted three horses, which were tied in the brush. They rode away south toward the Little Rockies. The Little Rocky Mountains are about 45 miles from the point where the hold-up occurred, and the prairie is open all the way.

Ten miles further south lie the breaks of the Missouri, which stretch for 20 miles further south before they come to the Missouri, and in the breaks are thousands of hiding places, where a man could almost stand off an army if followed.

Posse in pursuit. Word of the robbery reached Malta while the robbery was still going on, and posse of five men, armed to the teeth and well mounted, was organized. It started for the scene and reached the trail just 25 minutes after the three robbers rode away. A reward was offered by the Great Northern Express Co. of $5000 for the robbers.

It went on to explain how the robbers could get away so easy in the broken country of the badlands around the Missouri Breaks.

Harry Longabaugh, the man who is said to be the leader in to-day’s robbery, got out into the bad lands, and as he was one of the Curry gang, he had no trouble getting away.

The Curry gang had many friends in the vicinity of Malta and the Little Rockies, as has Longabaugh and the capture of its members was most difficult. One man from that section who was asked about the matter weeks ago. when the subject of bad men was under discussion, made the significant remark: “There are too many lonesome coulees in that neighborhood for me to have anything to say regarding the condition of things there, I attend to my own business and try to keep out of rifle range.” His words express the matter exactly.

That region has been a hold-out for the most desperate criminals of the county for years, and as a matter of self-protection people allow them to have their way saying nothing until some such crime as the present brings the state of things to light. Longabaugh is known as a desperate man and has had many gun plays in the past. Those who know him best say he will never be taken alive and that several better men are almost certain to bite the dust should he be overtaken.

The Sundance Kid didn’t stay in Montana and Wyoming, as is seen in this article from the Cheyenne Daily Leader in November of 1901. In the article is a description of Longabaugh – Suspected Train Robber Arrested in St. Louis May Be Butch Cassidy. A dispatch from Helena, Mont., says there is a question among Montana sheriffs as to the identity of the man under arrest at St. Louis charged with the robbery of the Great Northern express near Wagner last July. The St. Louis authorities are of the opinion that the man they have la Harry Longabaugh. but the belief here is that it is Butch Cassidy, one of the gang.

Former Sheriff John Dunn of Carbon County knows Longabaugh well and says the description fits Cassidy and not Longabaugh. He was along with the posse that captured Longabaugh, Kid Curry and another bandit after they had robbed a bank at Belle Fourche, S.D, in 1898.

The men were turned over at Billings to the South Dakota authorities and afterwards escaped from jail. Sheriff Dunn said today. “Longabaugh is five feet seven and a half Inches tall, and in 1898 weighed 167 pounds. If the man now under arrest is a big man, it is not improbable that it is Butch Cassidy, a well-known outlaw, who was often a partner of Longabaugh and the Curry boys on their raids, the St. Louis authorities may have caught a member of the gang, though It may not be Longabaugh.” Dunn is positive he could Identify Longabaugh.

Although the ‘Wild Bunch’ operated their outlaw gang from approximately 1899 through 1901, when the Pinkerton Detective Agency and other lawmen got too to close, Cassidy, Sundance and his consort Etta Place, and possibly other members of the gang, fled to Argentina.

From the Riverton Republican in February 1910. Wyoming Outlaws In Charge: Hole-In-The-Wall Men Dictate To Government – Since the recent press dispatches from the department at Washington were made public in connection with the trouble existing between the government at Argentine and a number of famous old outlaws of central Wyoming the Republican office has been visited by an old Indian scout who at one time had his residence in the vicinity of the Hole-In-The-Wall country and who was personally acquainted with the history of those noted bad men.

According to his statements this part of the state was at one time controlled by the likes of George Leroy Parker, alias “Butch Cassidy,” Harry Longbaugh. alias “The Sundance Kid,” and Harvey Logan, alias “Kid Curry.” Extending their acts of criminality over a wide range of territory and using the “bad lands” of Wyoming for their hiding places this “wild bunch” were finally jailed or driven from the country. Logan, whose special stronghold was the ‘ buzzards’ roost,” near the Wyoming-Utah line, gained freedom from a Knoxville prison after one of the most notorious jail breakings in the history of crime and after the Union Pacific had spent nearly a quarter of a million in his capture. Just now it is reported at Washington that these men have drawn around them a strong force of brigands so powerful that the government of Argentina itself is forced to pay tribute.

But, even in Argentina, crime didn’t pay for long. From Bill Barlow’s Budget, Douglas in May, 1913 “Butch” Cassidy Killed “‘Butch” Cassidy for many years the’ pet outlaw of Fremont County, is reported to have been killed the past winter in South America, says the Lander Journal. Cassidy was a bank robber and a horse thief on a big scale and was doubtless one of the Wilcox train robbers who killed Sheriff Hazen, of Converse County, north of Casper, while escaping into the Hole-in-the-Wall country. Pursuit finally became so close that he left the country and went to South America. According to the report Cassidy and another bank robber named Kid Curry who was raised in Crook County, had joined forces in the Argentine Republic They held up a pack train and were wounded in the fight which followed, then, unable to get away, Cassidy killed his companion and then himself.

Although the newspaper account said he was with Kid Curry, the previous newspapers did say that Harry Longabaugh, (The Sundance Kid) was also in Argentina at that time. With history, it is often difficult to separate fact from fiction, especially when one is talking about international news at the time. And when perhaps the government just wanted to close the book on these troublemakers.

There is anecdotal evidence that Cassidy survived and came back to the United States, and there are claims that Sundance and Etta Place also came back to the United States and lived under different names to escape capture. Probably no one will ever know just what happened to two of Wyoming’s most famous outlaws, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.