I watched it last night for the 999th time. I have a picture of myself sitting in the same spot in the old barn in Grafton Utah where Katherine Ross sat during the bike riding scene, taken in 1979. “Etta’s” house built for the film still stood there, mixing well with the old Mormon ghost town buildings.
First off, I was quite familiar with the story of the Wild Bunch, Cassidy and rhe Sundance Kid long before the movie though I was only twelve when it came out. My dad was a history teacher and an amateur Western historian, usually on military matters. He was well enough known to host several TV programs on the subject here in LA. The Wild Bunch story was in practically every Old West book on outlaws I ever saw long before the movie. We also subscribed to your magazine, which in those days ran stories by lots of surviving old timers and letters commenting on the articles by many more. The Wild Bunch was often covered. A couple of things. I applaud your digging up the old pictures and court records of the death of the two men in Bolivia. Also the pictures purporting to be of Cassidy and Longbaugh. Given the lack of detail it could be them or then again, not be. I do remember that a team of forensic anthropologists digging up their supposed grave site only a few years ago couldn't find any remains. Perhaps two American bandits were actually killed there. They wouldn't have been unique. There were North American badmen all over Latin America. Joseph Conrad wrote several of his great novels on men like that along with lesser writers. The story you tell stinks. Three men with military rifles cross a small patio. At close range one of the men inside fatally wounds the leader. The other two, fleeing gunfire, manage to work their long rifles accurately enough to cause three serious wounds to the ARMS of the two men inside. There is no more gunfire except maybe from inside the room. The men don't do the logical thing and fleeby by breaking through the adobe walls before reinforcements arrive. They commit suicide. Seriously? Their identification as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid comes from the later recollections of an expatriate British mining engineer who claimed to know them well and was aware of their fate. Being upper class English I imagine he thought it was a lark to cteate a false and blind trail for his romantic outlaw friends. All we know is that they went to Argentina, owned and lived on a ranch in northern Patagonia, an area than resembles their homes in northern Utah and Wyoming, and that the ranch went belly up due to Aregentinian financial upheavals. After that Pinkerton and everybody else lost any trace of them. Vague rumors had them conducting robberies in the mining districts of the Andes, including Bolivia. Maybe true, maybe just wild rumor. Etta Place, who had probably been a high class whore, seems to have shipped out of Buenos Aires and disappeared without a trace. Now Cassidy's surviving relatives are quite firm that he visited them on an extended stay in the late 1920's and early 1930's, long after the hunt for him had died down. Utah Mormons are good at preserving secrets, especially about skeletons in the closet. After that, no report. I'm inclined to believe that to be true. Not very romantic to have them pass away from disease and/or old age years later but there's at least as much evidence of that as anything else. Could have been in South America somewhere or even in the US.
Very good research on your part I am certain that a man is intelligent as Bush and he was one of the few intelligent outlaws would have never been caught in a building with no way out that is so unbutch that it was unbelievable to me long before I saw a movie showing that. He used to make his cohorts angry with his meticulous planning and had escape route a b and c for everything. I believe the family they said he visited them I also believe the story that he went to Europe and had plastic surgery told the Sundance kid who went back to a wife that had several kids and would never be suspected of being Sundance that they would never again contact each other. Butch came home his father said at first I didn't recognize him but when he smiled I knew it was my Boy. I know he did not die they did eventually found remains and it turned out to be a German minor they were identified by a man who owed them a debt and this would be the way to get the pinkertons off their back although it didn't really work because the pinkertons look for them all the way into the 1920s. Butch was a very smart man and I believe he out Fox them all
They were armed robbers. Ruthless professional gunmen. It was them. If they hadn't have died there they would have carried on robbing, and the authorities would have deduced that they were still active. Their time had been and gone. They were anachronisms, dinosaurs on horses in the age of the motor car and plane .... Things had moved on too quicly for them and they ran out of time .... We were only a few years from Dillinger and the Karpis Barker Gang. Not to forget Bonnie and Clyde driving a thousand miles a day and crossing State Lines.
I remember watching that documentary about that they weren't too sure where they're exactly buried in that graveyard. They had to dig kind of like around and under other grave sites
Bob I've been watching all your videos and trying to find more. The Old West, to me, strangely enough, is like being a man who feels nostalgia for a time and place in which he never lived. We're sometimes confronted with the "reality" that our Old West heroes weren't quite like we imagine them - I was thinking of Allie Earp's comments on the real Wyatt Earp a man she knew well. How strange it would be to actually meet these legends in their day and come to the realization of so many things we take for granted.
Being an old Utah boy, I've always found the story of the death of Butch and Sundance quite interesting, especially since there are many here in our state who firmly believe that at least Butch made it out of Bolivia. I read a book years ago (was it "Butch Cassidy, My Brother," by Lula Parker Betenson??? Can't remember.) that seemed to push the idea that Butch and Sundance weren't killed in Bolivia. Instead, they were actually in the upstairs office of Percy Garris of the American Mining Company when the dead bodies of two Yankee bandidos were brought to the mine for Percy's identification. According to the book, if I remember correctly, Percy went outside and confirmed that the two Yankees were indeed Butch and Sundance, giving both the opportunity to "start clean." Years later, Butch's sister, Lula Parker Bentenson, claimed that Butch visited the family there in Circleville, Utah. On the other hand, some family members claim he was killed in Bolivia. Who knows? In regards to Etta (Ethel) Place, many feel she could've possibly been one of the Bassett sisters, most probably Ann. Both girls, Ann and Josie, didn't have the morals of an alley cat. Wait...let me re-phrase that. Both girls actually DID have the morals of an alley cat. Could Etta Place have been an alias, using the maiden name of Sundance's mother? Again, who knows? That's what makes history so interesting. It's like peeling the proverbial onion...layer upon layer...and sometimes we cry.
Just got and started reading your 3 books series "Classic Gunfights". Wonderful books well written and I love the maps, gives you a bird's eye view. Thanks for all you do.
Butch and Sundance Kid rerally returned to United States. Cassidy passed away in leeds (Utah) in 1957 at the age of ninethy. Scuse me for my english, I am Italian. Please read the book of Kerry Ross Boren : "The untold Story".
They want you to believe that a man died in Bolivia a good friend of Butch Cassidy was the only one who identified the body at the same man whose life Butch had saved. And this is the same man who when he was planning a robbery had an escape plan a and Escape Plan B and an escape plan C he was a meticulous planner so much that he irritated his gang members. Butch is far too smart to have been trapped in a building like that that is a stupid move something that Butch would never do he always had at least three escape plans. They dug up the body where they said Butch was absolutely married they didn't find butch or the Sundance Kid they found a German miner. Butch returned to see his family in the twenties and it first they didn't know who he was but the instant he smiled his father said you can change the face but you can't change the smile that's my boy.
Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid) is my 1st cousin 3x removed. His father was Josiah Longabaugh and his mother was Annie G. Place. I really enjoyed this. Thanks!
@@disgruntledpedant2755 The only information I’ve learned about her comes from Google. There is zero reliable information about her on Ancestry research. It is odd that she shares her last name with Harry’s mother’s maiden name. She might have used an alias.
I grew up with an Ed Longabaugh and went to school with his kids, Darren, Ed Junior and daughter Karen..If i remember Correctly, Ed was a great Nephew of Harry.
Strother Martin was great in that movie .another one Butch &Sundance the younger years when they first met.William Katt and Tom Berenger played the lead.
There had been rumors for many years that they were in Calgary running a saloon in a hotel that was located where the main post office on 9 Avenue was built.
So what do you say about Butch's sister claiming he visited the family back in Utah after his supposed death? She was not ever known to lie about anything. Also weren't there two other American bandits plying their trade in the area at the same time as Butch and Sundance? One of the great mysteries still , at least in my mind. Miss Place, the other mystery ✔️
I agree and there was a policeman that Butch was introduced to. This story needs to be addressed. Also, the graves of the 2 bandits have never been located.
Great talk /Discussion on Butch’ and Sundance’ 👍 brings back memories to those Old like Me that Were around when it premiered. Interesting that there’s a few photographs of them Down in S.America-- but No photos of them when they supposedly we’re killed. I believe the two Men Killed were not Butch’ and Sundance! There’s enough reliable verbal testimony from family and few friends that Butch laid Low up in WA State and went down into Utah on occasion. I believe Sundance meet up with Etta’ and disappeared into the sunset! 🇺🇸
It was reported that there were two American Outlaws that went to Bolivia very unlikely in my opinion it was not Butch and Sundance I also believe that I read that when they were digging in that area they found two skulls with what was believed to be bullet holes in them boys consistent with a mercy killing and suicide they also did a DNA test and it was not them now does that necessarily mean that they weren't killed there no but I do believe that butches sister is telling the truth that somebody introduced him as to her as somebody who she's only saw when she was a baby and it was her brother now could that person have been lying or lie to yes but I don't think so
With the exception of Billy the Kid which they gave the man that said he was Billy the Kid a 93% certainty that it was one in the same then Butch Cassidy would be the one that I most believe would have happened him being trapped inside a building and killed is so very much not like Butch Cassidy at all. He didn't kill he was extremely smart as criminals go and he always had a plan a b and even c. He planned and planned to his cohorts would get angered at him because he didn't want any mistakes or anything to cause problems he would never be trapped inside a building like that. Had they been trapped inside a building Sundance was a man killer and he would have definitely taken more with him
They always do this with bank robbers and outlaws. Only a couple of years ago they dug up Jessie James for a DNA test ... and yes, it was him in the grave. They speculated Billy the Kid wasn't killed, and Harvey Logan didn't blow his brains out after the Parachute train robbery, while lying gutshot and trying to hold off the posse and buy time for his friends ... and they say it's not Parker and Longabaugh, and that the Feebs didn't kill Dillinger in the alley next to the cinema, and that the Anglin brothers and Morris didn't drown in the frigid waters of San Francisco Bay, and that DB Cooper isn't skeletal remains somewhere in the heavily forested wilderness of Washington State.... People always want to believe that their folk heroes lived to fight another day. Well they didn't. People need to just accept that fact.
Most likely,the Leather and Metal Lasso, was a rawhide braided Riata with either an iron ring for the Hondo or a Brass burner in the Hondo. Im not sure, when the Brass burners came into vogue, so I'm going with the Metal ring Hondo. They were used and popular in central and south America.
I live in montclare PA Where sundance was born.he got hos name from stealing horse's on sundance wyoming. He married a girl from PA his house is not there any more they claim it burned down.
Great information, But there were reports of 2 other Americans in the area at that time, and yes why would buch Cassidy's sister say he came home, I think thay were to smart to naught out with mules whith mining brands,,
Butch and Sundance were not killed November 7, 1908 in South America. Butch was in Alaska wittinessing a wedding when the shoot out took place and Sundance was in San Francisco visiting his brother Elwood. Butch died June 1956 Sundance died 1955 For the final word read the new book by Dr. Steve Lacy “Last of The Bandit Riders Revisited Again.” From Eborn Books.
A leather and metal lariat is likely a rawhide rope with a metal liner in the honda. I am confused as to the supposed proof that they did die in Bolivia. Are you saying that some of the horse gear shown in the photo was with the two dead bandits?
Your confusion about a Metal lasso is to be understood. My Great-Grandfather was shot in the right breast during a battle at Ft. Rice N.D. in 1865 with the confederated Sioux tribes led by Sitting Bull. His Sergent, Captian and he all described it as a "Big Bored Rifle". I cannot find any other reference to anyone using that term. So what it really was, remains a mystery. He did write that the entry hole was so large, that he could stick his thumb in it.
If they never killed a man. It's hard to believe one of them would shoot, and and hit the lead man. When they never had before. And if they had ran from the law before, many times. They'd let down this one time? It didn't go down like that I don't believe. They may have got caught. But I doubt any one would have just walked up on them. How would they have made it this far if they didn't know how to get away after a robbery? Incredulous because it doesn't match their behavior in mode of operation.After all they weren't stupid. Like I'm writing they may have got caught, but it was not at some cantina in Bolivia.
Excuse me they weren't really anonymous because the first silent movie shot was about the wild bunch butch and Sundance. That was because of Wyatt Earp, of whom was used as a confidant to the writer and director. But butch and Sundance's story was never properly told.
The website to order the book is in the description. I recently ordered all three classic gunfight books and one about Geronimo. Excellent reading and the detailed maps, recent and period pictures of the places these gun fights happened seen so many times in movies. Life and death as it really was, not as seen on TV.
Great stuff as always! I was wondering about that leather and metal lasso you mentioned. Would they have had such things as metal-loop or metal-lined hondas (or even breakaway hondas) back then? I once read that the old Mexican vaqueros used to fit a bone loop in the hondas of their rawhide ropes. Maybe someone thought of making a metal version of that.
At some point I looked at this, where 1 shot where someone was killed. The remains of tiffany watch that was tied to etta place that left the two prior to their death. ANd the way she got lost in history.
Another line from the movie was when they tried to blow the safe in the boxcar and the whole car exploded, Sundance asked Butch, "Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?"
I grew up in Spokane Washington. I have heard since I was a child that Butch took a new name and plastic surgery from France. He owned a business in manufacturing, then died at his dad's ranch while visiting his home state of Utah. His business was on N Division Street just north of downtown Spokane. New last name was Phillips.
"How many of them are following us?" "All of them." "Hey, what's wrong with those guys!?" Also, "If he'd pay me what he's spending to get me to stop robbing him, I'd stop robbing him!"
I once ate at a steak house in a little southern Idaho town called Montpelier. According to the resturaunt's placemat, the Wild Bunch gang robbed the local bank, and the sheriff tried to chase them on a bicycle. I don't recall why the sheriff set out in pursuit on a bicycle instead of a horse--maybe there wasn't a horse nearby that was saddled and ready to ride, or maybe the sheriff just really wanted to try out his new bike. But t if paper placemats from steakhouses in little mountain west towns can be considered reliable historical sources, the story is entirely true.
What’s your thoughts on the 2 German bodies that were dug up from their supposed graves? Do you think there’s any chance Butch & Sundance weren’t the two outlaw’s that were killed in San Vicente?
I strongly suspect those two gringos, who the locals mistook for the "Banditos Yankees", were not Butch and Sundance. DNA evidence points to this being likely. Butch's sister in Utah said he died of old age in Utah on top of that. It is also quite possible that Sundance evidentually returned to Utah as well.
I wish you had given us your take on what happened to Etta Place. There are tons of stories about her after splitting up with Sundance. I've read everything from her dying in a domestic shoot-out, to her dying of natural causes in 1966.
What happened to Etta Place? Is the rumor true that she was really Annie Bassett? Thank you for adding things I didn't know about Butch and Sundance. Two of my fave outlaws!!!!
When you ask the question do you want to know the truth how they died for the movie version just remember the most accurate line ever from a movie when talking about history from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance when Legend becomes fact print the legend
I was very disappointed with this presentation. First, they were identified by a friend of theirs, and what a better time to identify a friend as dead so that people would stop looking for him. Second, my nephew, by marriage, was a witness when they exhumed Butches body and the DNA identified him as an English mining engineer. It was referenced that Butch's sister told of his return to Utah and I totally believe that. Some of her family told people she was losing her mind, but they did that so that no one came looking for him. Eda returned to the US and probably lived with her family In the North East somewhere. I have always believed that she was the daughter of a fairly well-to-do family and as a young girl went west for adventure and became a whore to survive. There is no doubt that she had one great adventure.
Just seems that, for me. I wonder on two points of your story. !. If they had all those cattle, sheep, ect. why would they need to rob a bank? 2. If they were pinned down, I cannont imagine them not fighting through the situation or give themselves up. It seems like a either or other time in there life. If they, one of them took the other out... I just think of myself. I am going to die. Then, I will fight till the end. Why go out so easy. These are only thoughts that I have with the story. Not saying right or wrong. Enjoyed the episode.
I cowboyed in the Dakotas back in the 60s, and over in the Tetons and down by Tye Siding on the Clorado line. I met a few older cowboys, and always enjoyed palavering with them. Fella I met called Salt Lake Shorty, about 85+ years old was a cooks helper on a neighbors ranch. Actually, it wasn't a job except in name only, but a way for him to live out his life with dignity. Anyway, he said that "The Law" had been looking high and low for anybody connected to the Wild Bunch, but Cassidy in particular. He had met Butch, (Shorty called him "Bobo", which he said was an old nickname.) several times, and described him as a good hand and pleasant, with a fair to middling singing voice. He said "I saw him one day in the 20s, and wondered then if things had all kinda blown over. We just stopped to say hello, and I never saw him again." Tied in with the other stories by his family, it seems reasonable to me that the two bodies buried in South America weren't Butch and Sundance. Considering they seemed to have quit the outlaw game around that time, I reckon we could say them outlaws did die then. But maybe two new fellas were created to take a turn at the wheel of life. At least I hope so, 'cause even old outlaws deserve to retire.
I really enjoy your work and would love to know your opinion on the exhumation and DNA tests done around 2011. Two bodies were exhumed where the outlaws were supposedly buried and while they found two sets of remains with apparent bullet wounds, the DNA did not match those of Butch Cassidy's relatives. This is how it was reported in the news in 2011. Have there been developments about that in recent years to cast doubt on all that?
I know that 2 members of their gang and Sundance were in San Francisco a day or so before the earthquake. They are in the video a trip down market st. I noticed because Sundance was so tall and his gait made him stick out like a sore thumb. When they crossed they just glared at the camera. I checked photos of the 2 men with him and it is obvious they are 2 of the gang members. The two gang members were supposed to have been killed earlier but they definitely were not. I check to see if they had been there. They were supposed to have gone to San Francisco after the quake but who would go there after the quake if they didn't have strong cause. I believe Etta Place died in the earthquake.
DNA seem to confirm that Butch Cassidy in the Sundance kid are buried nowhere in Bolivia and many honest people said they saw Butch and Sundance many years after 1908. His family were Church going and they said that Butch visited the homestead several times between 1908 and 1926 but he still had to be very careful. A lot of people don't know this but the pinkerton's said the Bolivia escapade was bogus and they didn't believe it for one second and they kept the poster on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid at least until 1930. They knew which was very correct that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid fake their death that someone else had died and they took the place of them so they could come out retiring the United States and live to a ripe old age. No one deserved that more than Butch Cassidy who had never before killed a human being.
What I just saw,at the very end (18:23) is not the real story.Butch and Sundance made it back to the United States, year's went by and the Sundance Kid was shot and killed back in Pennsylvania and that's where he's baried,in a unmarked grave.As far as Butch,he was killed in a mine and buried not far from where he died.The family (including Lulu) didn't want Butches grave located and to keep it that way within the family and yes Butch is buried in a unmarked grave also,so I'm going to respect Lulu's and the families wishes but their both buried in the United States.As far as Etta Place,she died from a heart attack (I believe it was) ,her remains were cremated and she was buried in a cemetery in a unmarked grave.Ive only seen the grave's of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and yes there's no marker with them.May they all 3 rest in Peace.
I’m family . A Cousin, he is buried in central Utah, and no mining accident, he was old when he Died. His uncle didn’t want him spoke of and not as a Parker, He didn’t like the Parker name soiled. butchs mother got letters from him in South America. I know about wher his grave is. .
They reckon that Butch was originally from England and the Newcastle region, but I think that's when he was very much younger and can't imagine him carrying English currency with him at that time of his life.
I like the last scene when Butch and Sundance exit the room there in and confront about 50 or more federales with rifles Of course they don't last long. I wonder were they buried in Bolivia in marked graves, if anyone knows that it's you
I was very disappointed with this presentation. First, they were identified by a friend of theirs, and what a better time to identify a friend as dead so that people would stop looking for him. Second, my nephew, by marriage, was a witness when they exhumed Butches body and the DNA identified him as an English mining engineer. It was referenced that Butch's sister told of his return to Utah and I totally believe that. Some of her family told people she was losing her mind, but they did that so that no one came looking for him. Eda returned to the US and probably lived with her family In the North East somewhere. I have always believed that she was the daughter of a fairly well-to-do family and as a young girl went west for adventure and became a whore to survive. There is no doubt that she had one great adventure.
So, those two did die in Bolivia for a fact, I take watching this, but, not quite the glorious death as it was in the movie this interesting video was about...?
No they didnt. The LAST living Member of the Gang, Joe Marsters who joined the gang at 13 years old, told of how in 1915 when he was riding for Pawnee Bills 101 wild west show, had a mutual acquaintance, come behind the arena to say Hey. He then told Joe, that "the Boss "wanted to say Hey too and pointed to the stands. When he looked up, Butch stood up and took his hat off and waved it. Heard the Story from the man himself as well as others and evidence to back it up.
@@TightwadTodd Like the story but needs a little clarification. Pawnee Bill had a wild west show but the 101 Ranch was owned by the Miller brothers and they also had a show. They never were combined.
@@fredstaff9893 You are correct. It was my mistake. In looking up the written text regarding the story, It was Pawnee Bill who introduced Joe to the 101 and got the job for him.
Nope, he lived in the north west, had a small business, changed his name to Phillips, came back to Utah, had a car, dressed nice, lulu visited with him quite a few times, his more religious part of the family never spoke his name didn’t want the Parker name soiled.
