B-bottoms FIHOTD (Butch Cassidy)

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Butch Cassidy

 

 

Robert LeRoy Parker, commonly known as Butch Cassidy, was born on 13 April 1866 in Beaver, Utah was a notorious train and bank robber.

 

 

Early Days

Robert LeRoy Parker was born to Maximillian Parker and Ann Gillis, English Mormon immigrants to the Utah Territory. He grew up on his parent's ranch near Circleville, Utah, some 300 miles south of Salt Lake City, Utah.

 

Parker left home during his early teens when, while working at a local dairy farm, he fell in with one Mike Cassidy, a horse thief and cattle rustler. He subsequently worked several ranches in addition to a brief stint as a butcher in Rock Springs, Wyoming, whence he acquired for himself the nickname "Butch", (however a "Butch" is also the name given to a borrowed gun) to which he soon appended the surname Cassidy in honor of his old friend and mentor.

 

 

Life as a Criminal

 

1880

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On 1 May 1905 the trio sold the Cholila ranch as once again the law was beginning to catch up with them. The Pinkerton Agency had known their precise address for some time but the rainy season had prevented their assigned agent, one Frank Dimaio, from traveling there and making an arrest. Governor Julio Lezana had then issued an arrest warrant but before it could be executed Sheriff Edward Humphreys, a Welsh Argentine who was friendly with Parker and enamored of Etta Place, had tipped them off. The trio fled north to San Carlos de Bariloche where they embarked on the steamer Condor across Lake Nahuel Huapi and into Chile. However by the end of that year they were again back in Argentina; on 19 December Parker, Longabaugh, Place and an unknown male took part in the robbery of the Banco de la Nacion in Villa Mercedes, 400 miles west of Buenos Aires, which liberated 12,000 pesos. Pursued by armed lawmen, they crossed the Pampas and the Andes and again into the safety of Chile.

 

On 30 June 1906 Etta Place, having lamented the loss of their ranch, decided that she had had enough of life on the run and was escorted back to San Francisco by Longabaugh. Parker, now under the alias James "Santiago" Maxwell, obtained work at the Concordia Tin Mine in the Santa Vela Cruz range of the central Bolivian Andes, where he was joined by Longabaugh upon his return. Their main duties included guarding the company payroll. Still wanting to settle down as a respectable rancher however, in late 1907 Parker made an excursion with Longabaugh to Santa Cruz, a frontier town in Bolivia's eastern savannah, and from here Parker wrote to friends at Concordia, saying that he had found "just the place I

[bassesofalessergod]

not obscure enough to be a footnote.

 

C-

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Originally posted by bassesofalessergod not obscure enough to be a footnote. C-

 

 

Being obscure or not has nothing to do with his place in the grand scheme of history though.

[ezstep]

The steam train from Durango to Silverton is still in operation. Beautiful scenery! In the very tight moutain passage, the train slows to about 2 MPH, which is where Cassidy jumped onto the train for the robbery.

 

Great movie, too.

 

"If he asks us to stay, then we'll go."