BY JOHN W. LUNDIN

Butch Cassidy robbed the Montpelier bank in southeast Idaho on Aug. 13, 1896, along with two associates, Elza Jay and Bob Meeks.  

Montpelier was settled in 1864, by 16 Mormon families sent by Brigham Young.  It was on the Oregon Trail, and the settlers sold fresh produce, dairy products and beef to travelers.  The Oregon Short Line Railroad, built between 1882 and 1884, brought in non-Mormon settlers from the main Union Pacific line. Two communities developed as a result--Uptown or Mormon Montpelier and Downtown or Gentile Montpelier.  The city was the home terminal for trains and engine crews of the Utah & Northern, a Union Pacific subsidiary going from Ogden, Utah to Butte, Mont.

The Bank of Montpelier, the first of all Idaho chartered banks, was established in 1891 and was robbed by Butch Cassidy of $10,500 in gold, silver and currency, although the road sign at Montpelier says the take was $16,500. The job was to raise money to hire a lawyer for another gang member--Matt Warner, who was jailed and accused of murder.  

Butch and Sundance rated a nice sized bunty for those days. COURTESY: John W. Lundin

After getting the money, the gang told everyone in the bank to stay put for 10 minutes.  Cassidy left the bank, walked nonchalantly across the street, got on his horse and rode slowly away.  The gang rode unhurriedly out of town, heading for Wyoming.  The sheriff had little experience and did not even own a horse, so he got on a bicycle and rode after the gang, a scene repeated in the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

A posse followed the gang to a canyon but stopped, fearing an ambush.  The gang had hidden fresh horses in the canyon and escaped the pursuing lawmen. The posse followed them for a week but gave up at Snyder Basin.  Henry Meeks, identified as one of the robbers by the bank manager, was caught and eventually convicted of the crime.  He was imprisoned until 1912.  

Kittie Wilkins, known as the Horse Queen of Idaho and the owner 10,000 range-bred horses in the Bruneau Valley of Owyhee County, had a saddle horse stolen from her ranch by the Sundance Kid, Will Carver and probably Butch Cassidy in September 1900. The Wild Bunch stole her white Arabian named Powder Face as they made their way through Idaho from Wyoming to Nevada to use in their robbery of the First National Bank of Winnemucca on Sept. 19, 1900.  It’s believed the gang stayed at the McFall House in Shoshone enroute.  

Winnemucca was a long way from the gang’s usual area of activity, but Cassidy was concerned that the outlaw profession was in trouble because so much of the west had become settled and because of the use of rapid communications by lawmen, including telegraph, the arrival of the telephone, and trains that crossed the country in days.  By this time, the Union Pacific Railroad, led by E.H. Harriman, had hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to track the Wild Bunch down.

The Wild Bunch stayed at the McFall Hotel in Shoshone a couple times. COURTESY: John W. Lundin

Cassidy decided to leave for South America but he needed money to finance his getaway.  The gang robbed the First National Bank in Winnemucca, 21 days after robbing the Union Pacific train in Tipton, Wyo.  There, the gang used too much dynamite to blow open the safe, and they destroyed the railroad car, an event portrayed in the movie.

The  Winnemucca bank robbery netted $32,640.  A rumor emerged later that Butch had an inside conspirator who assisted in the holdup--George S. Nixon, a bank official at the First National Bank.  Nixon was an early investor in Goldfield, a mining town in Nevada, 30 miles south of Tonopah, where Butch Cassidy was rumored to be seen.  The robbery took five minutes, but the chase lasted several days, ending when the gang’s trail was lost in near the Owyhee River north of Elko.

Cassidy and Sundance rode back to Idaho. When they changed to fresh horses near the CS Ranch, Butch yelled to the posse following him, “give this white horse to the kid at the CS Ranch,” referring to a kid whom he’d raced as a lark. The posse took the unbranded and unidentified horse to the 10-year-old who named it Patsy.   The boy later said, “For Butch to remember his promise to a kid when the posse was so close, he could not have been all bad.”

After the Winnemucca bank robbery, the gang reunited in Texas, at Madame Fannie Porter’s brothel in San Antonio.  Will Carver and Harvey Logan married prostitutes in Fort Worth.  After the wedding, Butch, Sundance, Logan, Ben Kilpatrick and Carver had their picture taken by a professional photographer, showing them in their finest dress looking very successful. It is rumored they sent a copy of the picture to the bank in Winnemucca, thanking the bank for its contribution to their good time. The picture was widely circulated, and it gave the gang a lasting image of glamour and sophistication.

Unfortunately for the gang, detectives used the picture to identify and hunt down the men. Their photos were widely posted along with a $10,000 reward per head offered by banks and railroads for their capture, dead or alive. That would be worth well over $100,000 in today’s money.  

According to Idaho State University professor Philip Homan, Carver and Logan and their new wives took the train to Shoshone in December 1900 for a honeymoon and to dig up the share of the Winnemucca loot that Carver had buried at Three Creek Ranch in Owyhee County where the bank robbers had stolen Wilkins’ saddle horse.  

The couples stayed at the McFall House, according to the confession of Carver’s wife Lillie Davis to a Pinkerton detective.  The two men likely registered at the McFall House under the aliases William Casey and Bob Nevilles

The brides were indignant when the boys took off. But they forgot their silly questions when Carver and Curry opened a suitcase, pulling out several bags of gold.  Logan flipped a coin to his wife Maud, who tested it in the traditional manner with her fine, strong teeth.  “There’s lots more where that came from,” he said.   The bridegroom and best man were liberal spenders.  They spent a great deal on dinners, champagne, fine buggies and horses, and of course Lillie got not one, but many fine hats with droopy ostrich feathers.

After Shoshone, the couples traveled to Helena and Butte, Mont., and returned to Denver where they stayed at Brown’s Palace where Logan bought new clothes. The trip ended at the Bank’s Hotel in Fort Worth.  Lillie received a set of diamond earrings and a fur sack that cost $275.  Carver sent Lillie home with $167 and sent her another $70 before his death in Sonora.  

Cassidy, Sundance and Sundance’s girlfriend Etta Place left for South America in 1901 after traveling to New York where they had more pictures taken that have become famous.   Butch and Sundance moved between various countries in South America, including Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, alternating between working legitimate jobs and robbing banks.  Frank Dimaio, a Pinkerton agent, went to South America after the fugitives, circulated wanted posters of the two, and traced their movements, so much is known about their activities.

The three initially went to Argentina, where they bought a 15,000-acre ranch outside of Cholia near the Andes.  They entertained their neighbors, were regarded as good citizens, and Etta reputedly danced with the provincial governor at a ball.

In February 1905, two English-speaking bandits, who may have been Butch and Sundance, robbed the Rio Gallegos bank south of Cholia, escaping with what would be worth $100,000 in today’s dollars.  They learned that the Pinkerton agent intended to arrest them so they sold their ranch and went to Chile before returning to Argentina at the end of the year to rob another bank outside of Buenos Aires. Etta allegedly took part in both the robberies.  According to friends, Butch and Sundance wanted to go straight, but nobody would let them.

The three made elaborate plans for the Rio Gallegos bank.  They arrived in town two weeks before the robbery, checked into the best hotel, and deposited $12,000 in the bank, met the bank manager and told him they wanted to buy a ranch.  The three were invited to parties held by the town’s elite.  The day before the robbery, they withdrew their money from the bank, threw a lavish party, returned to the bank the next day and made the manager turn over all the money--a total of $70,000.  A posse and police force followed the robbers for three weeks but just found the horses left behind.

Etta’s true last name is not known.  Place was Sundance’s mother’s maiden name, and was the name Etta used when she registered in hotels.  Etta was young, appeared to be refined and educated and could shoot a rifle and ride a horse.  She traveled with Sundance and Butch for around 10 years.  She was 5-foot-5,' 110 pounds and had fair hair.  There were rumors she was a school teacher or prostitute, or both, and even the Pinkerton’s Detective Agency never discovered much about her.  Butch allegedly said, “She was a great housekeeper with the heart of a whore.”

She was not seen after 1906. An engineer for the Concordia mine in Bolivia where Butch and Sundance worked as payroll guards said Sundance told him that he took Etta back to Colorado for an appendectomy.  While waiting for her to recover, he got drunk, shot up the room and had to leave town in a hurry, never seeing her again.  Another version is that by 1906, Etta had enough of life on the run, and Longabaugh escorted her back to San Francisco, leaving her there.  

In late 1907, Butch and Sundance went Bolivia, looking at ranches. They ended up working as payroll guards at the Concordia Mine in the Santa Vera Cruz mountains of central Bolivia, as portrayed in the movie.   On November 1908, a courier for another mine was robbed of the company’s payroll by two Americans—believed to be Sundance and Longabaugh.  They escaped to a nearby town, where they were spotted, and the Bolivian police and army surrounded the men.  After an intense firefight, Butch and Sundance were reputedly killed, an event that was the last scene in the movie. One report said both men were badly wounded, and Sundance shot Butch to put him out of his misery, then killed himself.

However, rumors continued for many years thereafter that the two survived and moved back to the United States, living out their lives using assumed names.  Parker’s sister, Lula Parker Betenson, claimed that Butch returned to the United States and lived for many years thereafter.  She wrote a book, Butch Cassidy, My Brother, which contained reports from people who knew Parker who said they saw him after 1908.  She described a family reunion in 1925, attended by Butch.  There are also reports that Longabaugh returned to the United States and lived until 1937.  

Whatever the truth, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid have been transformed into icons of the West. Butch Cassidy’s name still generates fond recollections from many Utah old-timers who love to tell stories about him.  

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second part of a story on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’s Idaho connections. See the first, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Bedeviled Union Pacific’s Harriman,”  in the May 30 Eye on Sun Valley. John W. Lundin is a Seattle attorney now living parttime in Sun Valley where he writes about local history in such award-winning books as “Skiing Sun Valley: a History from Union Pacific to the Holdings.”