8 Fascinating Facts About Butch Cassidy

Today marks what would be the 151st birthday of Butch Cassidy . Most famously limn by Paul Newman in the 1969 classic , Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid , Cassidy led a bewitching life , which was follow by a mysterious dying . Here are some surprising facts about the infamous outlaw .

1. HE WAS BORN IN THE SAME TOWN AS A TELEVISION PIONEER.

Butch Cassidy was born Robert LeRoy Parker on April 13 , 1866 in Beaver , Utah . The metropolis ’s other famous son is tv set pioneerPhilo T. Farnsworth , who was born on August 19 , 1906 .

2. HIS LIFE OF CRIME BEGAN WITH A PAIR OF JEANS.

Cassidy ’s first memorialise criminal discourtesy occurred around 1880 , when he stole a brace of jeans . To his credit , the teenleft an IOU . The entrepot ’s owner pressed electric charge , but the soon - to - be outlaw was acquitted . Accordingto Larry Pointer’sIn Search of Butch Cassidy , Cassidy " had been elevate with the frontier ethic that a man ’s word was his bond . The IOU was an inviolate toast . The merchant ’s mistrust was an unfamiliar response and , before the matter was settled , the mortified youth was having sundry emotion over legal process and blind justice . "

3. HE WORKED AS A BUTCHER, WHICH MIGHT BE HOW HE GOT HIS NICKNAME.

After leaving home in his teens to find work , Cassidy — then still recognize as Parker — took a assortment of jobs on ranch and dairy farm . He spend some timeworking as a butcherin Rock Springs , Wyoming , which is how many theorize he came to be known as “ Butcher , ” which was later contract to “ Butch . ”

Why Cassidy ? That ’s a trickier tale . During his meter at one ranch , Butch reputedly met small - metre kine stealer J.T. McClammy , who went by the assumed name Mike Cassidy . The legend locomote that Butch total to see McClammy as something of a mentor and soadopted the last name . However , as with many things in Butch ’s life , the truth of this is shady . While the story is widely known , those who claim to be posterity of J.T. McClammy leaning his birth date as 1868 , which would make him two year younger than Butch , which does n’t fit the commonly held “ older wise man ” image .

4. HE WAS ONLY JAILED ONCE, AND IT WASN’T FOR BANK ROBBERY.

Cassidy was believe to be involved in hisfirst bank robberyin 1889 , when he and three others made off with more than $ 20,000 from a bank in Telluride , Colorado . However , the law did n’t catch up with him until 1894 , when he was institute guilty ofhorse theft . He was sentenced to two year in prison , but loose after 18 months .

5. HE DISLIKED VIOLENCE.

As peculiar as it sound to remember of an outlaw who dislike getting scratchy , records and personal recollections from the epoch all describe Cassidy as a very polite man who avoided violence whenever possible . He may have undulate a gun around when rob trains and banks , but he did n’t use it . Those who knew him said that one of hisproudest claimswas that he never killed a man .

6. HE MAY NOT HAVE LED THE WILD BUNCH.

7. HE AND SUNDANCE MAY NOT HAVE BEEN BEST FRIENDS.

Despite what was limn in the Oscar - winning motion picture , there ’s little reading that Butch and Sundance were in fact good friend . They were both members of the Wild Bunch bunch , but Butch was closelipped toWilliam Ellsworth “ Elzy ” Lay . Butch and Sundance laterowned prop togetherin Argentina , although it is not light whether they fled to South America together or if Butch joined Sundance at a later date .

8. THERE’S NO REAL EVIDENCE THAT HE WAS KILLED IN A SHOOTOUT.

Butch and Sundance were killed in early November of 1908 following a shootout with authorities in Bolivia … or were they ? Some historiansarguethat there is no real evidence that the two men were involved in the payroll department robbery that led to the shootout , or that they were even involved in the gunplay itself . Several alternative theories have arise , lay claim that the outlaws were not kill that mean solar day .

Josie Bassett , an acquaintance of the Wild Bunch , claimedthat Cassidy visit her in the twenties and that he “ die in Johnnie , Nevada … He was an old man when he perish . He had been endure in Oregon , and back east for a long prison term , where he worked for a railroad . ”

By far , the most pop theory is that Butch may never even have gone to Bolivia . Rather , he leave Argentina in early 1908 , adopted the nameWilliam T. Phillips , got married , and passed away ( anonymously ) in Spokane , Washington in 1937 . Butch ’s younger sister Lula bring credenza to this in her 1975 book , Butch Cassidy , My Brother , sayingthat he visited her and their father at the family home in 1925 . A script psychoanalyst alsoclaimedthat Butch Cassidy , Robert LeRoy Parker , and William T. Phillips were one and the same . But the main exponent of this theory , Larry Pointer , has recentlysaidthat he was wrong and Phillips was not actually Cassidy .

In 2009 , an unabridged transcript of Phillips’Bandit Invincible , a Cassidy biography , emerged . And adopt clues , Pointer came to the finis that William Phillips was really another Wild West outlaw named William Wilcox . So for the moment , the mystery lives on .