Butch Cassidy | Biography & Facts - Encyclopedia Britannica

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• PBS - Butch Cassidy and the Outlaw Trail

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Butch Cassidy American outlaw Ask Anything Homework Help Also known as: Robert LeRoy Parker Written and fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors Last updated Dec. 29, 2025 •History Britannica AI Ask Anything Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything

Butch Cassidy (born April 13, 1866, Beaver, Utah, U.S.—died 1909?, Concordia Tin Mines, near San Vicente, Bolivia?) was an American outlaw and foremost member of the Wild Bunch, a collection of bank and train robbers who ranged through the western United States in the 1880s and ’90s.

Quick Facts Byname of: Robert LeRoy Parker (Show more) Born: April 13, 1866, Beaver, Utah, U.S. (Show more) Died: 1909?, Concordia Tin Mines, near San Vicente, Bolivia? (Show more) See all related content

Robert Parker took his alias from Mike Cassidy, an older outlaw from whom he learned cattle rustling and gunslinging (1884–87). Thereafter—except for two years of chiefly cowboying (1891–92) and two years (1894–96) in Wyoming State Prison—he was teamed up with a succession of outlaws. His favourite friend and confederate was Elzy Lay, with whom, alone or in a gang, he helped rob a number of trains, banks, and paymasters and rustled horses and, less often, cattle. The year after Elzy was arrested and imprisoned (1899), Cassidy teamed up with Harry Longabaugh, the Sundance Kid. By then, sheriff posses and Pinkerton detectives were capturing or closing in on members of the Wild Bunch, and Cassidy and Sundance (with Sundance’s girlfriend, Etta Place) escaped first to New York City and then to South America (1901). (Etta Place returned home in 1907.) From 1902 to 1906 they owned and ran a ranch in Chubut province, Argentina, but thereafter they returned to outlawry. Drifting from country to country, they robbed banks, trains, and mine stations until 1909, when, according to Pinkerton agents, they were trapped by a group of mounted soldiers near San Vicente, Bolivia, where Sundance was mortally shot and Cassidy shot himself. Another story puts their death in Mercedes, Uruguay, in December 1911, cut down by soldiers during a bank robbery. Still other stories have Cassidy (either alone or with Sundance) returning to the United States, drifting about from Mexico to Alaska, and dying in obscurity in 1937 in the Northwest or in Nevada (possibly Spokane, Washington, or Johnny, Nevada).

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