Ep. 4 - Butch Cassidy American outlaw!

[Music] hey what's up roadside history followers I'm on the road today out checking out another historical place along our roadsides today I'm going to take you to the small town of Circleville Utah actually just outside of town I'm going to take you to the boyhood home of one of America's most notorious train and bank robbers one of the most notorious Outlaws in the history of this country a man by the name of Robert Leroy Parker also known as Butch Cassidy I'm going to take you to his home tell you a little bit about his life and some of the Mysteries surrounding his death so I hope you'll stay with me and tune in on roadside history today and learn a little bit more about this historical figure and this historical place and by the way if you haven't already liked and subscribed to my Channel please do so I've learned that about 90% of the viewers of my channel haven't subscribed so if you go ahead and hit subscribe on the bottom follow our Channel and get new stories and new updates every [Music] week hey welcome back to roadside history I'm here at the boyhood home of Butch Cassidy his real given name is Robert Leroy Parker and became one of the famous Outlaws in American history this little Homestead is located just outside of Circleville Utah which is a small town just off the beaten path oh about an hour off I-15 to the east of Beaver Utah it's ironic because Beaver Utah is where Robert Leroy Parker was born in fact give you a little background history Parker's family immigrated here to the United States his parents would marry in I believe it was 1865 if I'm not mistaken and they would live in Beaver Utah where Robert was born but a land dispute with would have his father leave beaver and settled just over the mountain probably 80 Mi as the crow flies over here to this little area in Circleville Utah and behind me is the home of Robert Leroy Parker Parker lived here on this on this property uh in this home uh from the time he was 14 till about the time that he was 18 years old and he was just like any other boy he loved to he loved to have fun he loved horses he liked to read his family history records that he was pretty funloving with his brothers and sisters which uh he had a number of brothers and sisters I think the exact number uh was eight if I'm not mistaken but I'll double check that for you anyway Parker would live here for a while but he'd soon grow tired of the life out here um he loved cattle uh and he loved animals and so he became uh he went to work for some cattle ranchers and while he was doing that he met a man by the name of Mike Cassidy Mike Cassidy would have a huge influence on his life cuz M Mike Cassidy was a criminal um he was a horse thief and he started showing uh Parker Robert Leroy Parker some of his ways and he became very impressionable in fact history recounts that he would take on this Man's last name kind of to disguise his his real name but also to protect his family but also because he had an admiration for him well this man would show Parker how to be a criminal and Parker would take on that name Cassidy now where does the butch come from well uh for a short time uh Parker lived in Wyoming in Lander Wyoming he worked as a butcher and while working there he took the name Butch hence you get the name Butch Cassidy let me show you the home and then tell you a little bit more about his [Music] life you can actually go inside the home which is what I'm going to take you in to do they've got plexiglass lined up here to protect it but give you an idea of what it was like here in those days this is a one room cabin um you can see they've got the little fake picture of Butch there but this property had been restored in fact several individuals that live in the area saw the importance of restoring this property and so they did that and today uh it stands as a place that you can come visit and come see well let me let me tell you a little bit more about Parker I I keep calling him Parker I'm going to start calling him Butch Cassidy just so you have a better understanding and appreciation for who he is well this individual got into train robbing got into bank robbing in fact the first bank that he robbed was the San Miguel bank which is located in Telluride Colorado he and a few others made off with about $21,000 which by today's standard would probably be about $800,000 so it's quite a sum of money for the time and with that money Parker would use it to buy some property he'd go back up to Wyoming and while in Wyoming he would purchase a ranch and uh would trade and and purchase cattle and trade for beef and there he met a young lady I believe her name was amb beset who he fell in love with and as history recounts then the sister then back to her and yada yada yada yada well Cassidy just couldn't stay away from crime he was arrested and he was sentenced to 2 years in prison uh because of horse horse theft uh anyway he served about 34 of that sentence before he was released and after his release he would begin assembling his gang of bank robbers and Train Robbers that would become known as The Wild Bunch in fact probably the most uh I don't know the person that we remember most in history of his Wild Bunch was an individual by the name of Harry laaba also known as the Sundance Kid that's why you generally will hear when you hear the name Butch Cassidy you'll hear and the Sundance Kid because Harry excuse me the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy would spend well the rest of their lives committing crimes together and ultimately up until their death I there's a tack shed behind me that you can see let me show you a little bit of that while I'm showing you this I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Sundance and Butch Cassidy so as history records these two individuals would uh basically work their way from New Mexico up to Wyoming eventually they even find themselves in Europe uh but they rob banks they rob trains in fact if you're ever in Mont pillar Idaho uh which is about 8 hours to the north of where I'm standing today Mont pillar Idaho actually does a great big Butch Cassidy days and they have a Butch Cassidy Museum there because he robbed a Bank in Mont pillar Idaho and uh and it's it's kind of become famous to their town he he got away with oh I I want to say it was about 8,000 bucks 7 or 8,000 bucks which tended to be typical in fact not far from where we are today about 3 hours to the uh East to the Northeast uh he would uh he would Rob the payroll of a company a mining company um anyway he would work his way through uh in and out of the area his his Wild Bunch often times after they robbed a place they would hide out uh at robbers Roost uh which became kind of their network of hiding places uh throughout the uh Southwest um and eventually as the Pinkerton detectives and law enforcement tend to close in on him I think Butch knew his days were numbered one of the things that he did was uh he like mentioned earlier he traveled to Europe for a Time hoping the Heat would cool off he came back you know some would even say uh he had surgery on his face to change his appearance um I don't know how true that is but uh that's a piece of oral history that's been passed down anyway eventually as The Story Goes Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the Sundance kid's girlfriend are going to find themselves in South America um let me tell you a little bit about that in 1901 Butch Cassidy and uh the Sundance Kid and Eda Place who was the uh the girlfriend um of the Sundance Kid they would uh leave New York and head to South America to buen isaris in fact of course they had a tremendous amount of money with them because well they had stolen it all along the way and while they were down in South America and Argentina they purchased a ranch where they would live for the next four or five years or so it was a huge Ranch 15,000 uh acres is my understanding and they lived in this area for a while but the thing about criminals that never changes is criminals never change as they continued to follow their life of crime and Rob individuals and rob banks it would eventually continue to catch up they would leave buenos arees um Eda would go back to San Francisco she was done with her life of crime and eventually what you see is the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy will return to South America they'll just keep going further south they'll end up in Bolivia and while they're in Bolivia is where the story takes an interesting twist you see they managed to have jobs even when they were in Argentina and in Bolivia they held jobs and they tried to live a life without crime but they they just couldn't stay away from it well as The Story Goes Cassidy and Sundance Kid are discovered and they're killed in a shootout with the Bolivian authorities I believe that was 1908 if I'm not mistaken anyway they're killed in this shootout and the rest is history or so people think that's the great thing about a good story and and history is over the years as Butch Cassidy was pronounced dead this American Outlaw hero if you will was pronounced dead um his family would tell a different story you see Cassidy's family would maintain that Cassidy would return home multiple times after he was apparently dead um sisters uh saw him uh Brothers saw him um individuals say that no he he lived out his life he he moved back to the United States and some even say that he actually died in the Pacific Northwest in the 1930s I don't know uh it's hard to say what's true but it's also hard to argue against family members who say that they saw him long after he was reported dead and they visited with him uh long after he was reported Dead uh so no matter what your take is on the history there's definitely Intrigue and mystery surrounding his death I don't know I guess one of the things I would encourage you to do is learn a little bit more about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid uh their bank robberies were uh numerous I guess one of the the good things about Butch is Butch wasn't a Kill he wasn't Jesse James um he wasn't stealing and killing and making examples out of people um he was taking money and and doing what he was with it but he wasn't killing people uh which uh you know I guess if there's a a lesser crime than there it is uh but anyway if you ever find yourself in this part of Utah I'd encourage you to take a stop swing by Circleville Utah you can see there's the Butch Cassidy home again right there swing by and take a look at this home and learn a little bit more about the history there's numerous historical markers along the way it's actually really easy to get here if you if you're taking I15 North from Las Vegas or from St George uh you'll get past the town of peran and you'll keep heading out eventually you're going to come to an exit I I can't remember the name of the exit but the exit will point you towards pengu Utah take that exit and then it's about a 45 minute drive over and uh down Highway 89 you're going to come across the Butch Cassidy home just a few miles outside of town here in Circleville Utah so i' I'd encourage you to come and see it I hope you enjoyed today's uh history stop on roadside history and learning a little bit more about one of America's greatest Outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid I hope you'll take a moment to like And subscribe to my channel we're trying to hit 1,000 subscribers so we'd love for you to subscribe we'd love for you to enjoy your next road trip and be safe [Music]

Channel: Roadside History

Views: 124

Keywords: #Utah, #butchcassidy, #sundancekid, #roadtrip, #outlaws, #history, #americanwest

Id: ChfjLO8CsSo

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 18 2024