American Experience (1988) s26e09 Episode Script
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1
NARRATOR:
In the early morning hours
of June 2, 1899,
two men crept along a desolate
stretch of train track
outside Wilcox, Wyoming.
MICHAEL RUTTER:
The Flyer is coming
down the tracks.
They're about ready to cross
a wood trestle bridge,
and we see a couple guys
with a lantern,
shaking it back and forth
to stop the train.
KEN VERDOIA:
Usually, it meant a washed out
track or damaged track ahead,
and the train should stop.
THOM ROSS:
Any engineer
in his right mind goes,
"We've got to lock up
the brakes."
(brakes screeching)
RUTTER:
The train stops
before the trestle.
The people on the train
are nervous.
We don't stop trains
in the middle of the desert,
but it just happened.
THOM HATCH:
The engineer thought
that the bridge might have been
washed out.
Little did he know that these
were robbers up on the tracks.
VERDOIA:
They pull apart
passenger cars,
separate them from the engine
and the car
which carries the safe.
NARRATOR:
Unable to force their way in,
the bandits packed the door
with explosives instead.
HATCH:
They had used too much dynamite.
(explosion)
Blew the car sky high.
It just demolished the car.
It was just a bunch
of twisted metal.
VERDOIA:
The cash and the coins
are thrown all over
the windswept plain.
Money, currency,
coin everywhere.
NARRATOR:
In an instant,
the holdup crew had made off
with $50,000 in cash,
banknotes and gold
in the most spectacular robbery
the West had ever seen.
GERALD KOLPAN:
In today's money,
that's something
over a million dollars.
That's in one heist.
NARRATOR:
In an era that saw
cold-blooded killers
like Jesse James
and the Younger Brothers
terrorize the West,
this job had all the markings
of a different kind of gang:
a notorious group of men
known as the Wild Bunch.
VERDOIA:
They would visit havoc
upon banks, railroads,
mining companies,
but they are really cut
from a different cloth
because they don't leave blood,
mayhem and bodies in their wake.
NARRATOR:
Their leader, Butch Cassidy,
was a charismatic thief
who had elevated bank and train
robbery into an art form.
RUTTER:
The Wilcox robbery
is classic Butch Cassidy.
It's what made Butch
a rock star.
He became a national celebrity.
NARRATOR:
But the freewheeling world of
Butch Cassidy and his sidekick,
a moody Easterner with a fast
gun known as the Sundance Kid,
was based on a frontier order
that was rapidly
fading into myth.
VERDOIA:
The West is being crisscrossed
by rail lines,
mines are everywhere,
cities are exploding,
and this era of open opportunity
is drawing to a close
at the end of the 19th century.
The story of Butch and Sundance
plays out
as that curtain is coming down.
PAUL HUTTON:
The game is changing.
The railroads don't care
how much it costs.
They don't care what trouble
they have to go to.
They're going to end
the robbing.
Butch Cassidy
and The Sundance Kid
are the last of the wild riders
of the West,
and when they're gone,
the Wild West is gone.
NARRATOR:
Though he would one day be known
as the most fearsome bad man
of the West,
Butch Cassidy was born
Robert Leroy Parker in 1866
to a family of devout Mormons.
His father, Maximilian,
who was among the earliest
Mormon settlers,
could barely eke out a living
from the parched earth of their
homestead in southern Utah.
He was often forced
to take work far from home
for months at a time.
With his father gone,
Robert's mother, Anne,
a tough and deeply
religious woman,
looked to her eldest son to help
raise their growing family.
HATCH:
Bob Parker was the oldest
of 13 kids,
and so he became
the surrogate father,
and he would take care
of the kids.
Bob was like a big kid himself,
and he was
throughout his whole life.
He was a very gregarious man
who made friends wherever he
went because of his personality.
His mother home-schooled
the kids, mostly on the Bible.
She would hold services there.
He absolutely adored his mother.
RUTTER:
His mother was very devout.
The family was strict.
There was a confirmed
right and wrong.
There were fundamental
Christian values in the family.
NARRATOR:
At the age of 13, Robert
took a job on a nearby ranch
to help earn money
to support his family.
It was there that he met a man
who would forever alter
the direction of his life:
a small-time cattle rustler
named Mike Cassidy,
who taught him the finer points
of how to survive as a cowboy.
VERDOIA:
Mike Cassidy.
He's a well-known horseman
and he's great with a revolver,
an excellent shot and marksman,
and Cassidy takes a liking
to little Bobby Parker,
teaches him how to really
ride a horse,
teaches him how to handle
a revolver,
how to become a good marksman,
and more importantly,
Mike Cassidy shows him
how to cut corners.
There's big cattle operations,
and they'll never miss it
if one or two or ten of the herd
gets cut away
and goes to another place.
And Robert Parker
watched Mike Cassidy
acquire cattle and horses
in that fashion.
NARRATOR:
For Robert, Mike Cassidy
was a man free from the poverty
and religious confines
that dominated his life.
Cassidy filled his head
with visions of a wider world:
a world where adventure
and greater paydays
were within reach.
And by the time he was 18,
Robert was itching
to strike out on his own.
VERDOIA:
If you're Robert Leroy Parker,
you look at your dad, who played
by the rules and lost,
worked himself to the bone
and had nothing to show for it.
You look at Mike Cassidy,
a man who cuts corners,
takes a little here,
takes a little there,
lives by his wits
and is always getting ahead.
And so he rides
in the direction,
if you will, of Mike Cassidy.
He rides away.
Will he ever be back?
He promises he will,
but will he ever be back?
NARRATOR:
In the summer of 1884,
18-year-old Robert Parker
rode into the mining town
of Telluride, Colorado.
For a young man
seeking adventure,
he had come to the right place.
In the early 1880s,
Telluride was booming.
Gold fever was drawing men
from across the West:
rugged frontiersmen who packed
Telluride's famed saloons,
gambling halls
and houses of ill repute.
HUTTON:
Robert Parker goes to a world
that couldn't be more different.
This is the wild boomtown world
of the mining camp,
so a lot of gambling,
a lot of drinking,
a lot of prostitution,
a lot of young men heavily armed
and fueled by alcohol.
HATCH:
He went in there
with a Mormon mind,
and within a week or two,
I'm sure he'd been
in every saloon there
and he learned how to drink
with the best of them
and he gambled
with the best of them.
He didn't feel comfortable
in Mormon country,
but he felt comfortable
in Telluride.
NARRATOR:
Young Robert Parker soon grew
dismayed with life as a miner.
By the time he rode
into Telluride,
many of the major claims
had already been staked.
Parker was resigned
to take a grueling job
hauling gold and silver ore
by mule down from the mountains.
HUTTON:
To find yourself,
you know, almost like ants,
moving through this mountainside
and just moving dirt and moving
stone for someone else
and for someone else's wealth
I think probably grated
on someone like Parker.
VERDOIA:
Going in the mines
each and every day,
Robert Parker looks at that
as a sucker's bet.
You're coming out bone weary,
you could die down there,
and what have you earned
at the end of the day?
But on the corner
is the San Miguel bank.
NARRATOR:
With the riches being hauled out
of the hills ringing Telluride,
Parker was sure the local bank
was well stocked with tender.
For Parker
and his two new friends,
a lapsed Mormon
named Matt Warner
and his ornery brother-in-law
Tom McCarty,
the bank was an auspicious
target.
But even in the isolated towns
of the West,
bank robberies were
rarely successful.
Most were ill-planned,
played out at the spur
of the moment
after too many hours
at the saloon.
(gunshots)
No sooner had the robbers
cleaned out a safe
than the townspeople amassed
to gun them down.
Parker was undeterred
by the foreboding odds.
HUTTON:
From the very beginning,
he had a methodology.
He wasn't just
one of these wild riders
like the movies make so famous.
He was very methodical,
he was very careful
and he was very intelligent.
VERDOIA:
Parker knew it's not just
about where the money is,
but knowing when it will be
at its peak.
When will the cash arrive?
Who handles the cash?
How many people
are in the building
at the time when the cash
is at its peak?
And more importantly than that,
how will I make my escape?
NARRATOR:
Just after noon
on June 24, 1889,
Parker and his cohorts
saddled up
alongside the San Miguel
Valley Bank.
They waited
until the cashier left,
leaving only a single teller
inside.
Warner and Parker
casually entered the bank
and demanded the cash.
They walk out
and they ride like hell.
No one even knows
the bank has been robbed.
NARRATOR:
By the time a posse was
assembled, it was too late.
Parker's masterstroke,
and what would become
his signature technique,
was to set up a series of horse
relays along the exit route
where the outlaws could trade
their played-out mounts
for fresh ones.
He figured no posse,
no matter how determined,
could keep pace with bandits
in constant supply
of steady horsepower.
VERDOIA:
He's been working
days and weeks in advance.
He's been storing fresh horses,
building alliances with people
along the way.
This is extraordinary planning,
and this is the genius
of Robert Parker.
He had planned the escape
even better than he had
planned the holdup.
ROSS:
This is the first
of his great escapades
where they wind up
with big money.
I mean, you walk away
from a bank with $20,000,
you're looking at
what a cowboy might take him
five or ten years to make
if he saved every penny.
RUTTER:
This is a serious crime.
It's one thing to take a few
cows or take a couple horses,
but this is big-time robbery.
There's no going back.
There is no going back.
NARRATOR:
Parker knew his criminal deed
would break the heart
of his pious mother
and decided it was best
to deflect shame from his family
by changing his name.
He would now honor
the influence of his mentor
and answer to Butch Cassidy.
(trains rumbling on tracks)
NARRATOR:
On the other side
of the country,
in the mill town
of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania,
an introverted young boy
by the name of Harry Longabaugh
could only dream
of an adventurous life
on the open range.
Raised in the gray
and claustrophobic
industrial world of the East,
it must have seemed
inconceivable
that he would one day
play a role
in one the West's
greatest legends.
HATCH:
Sundance was born
Harry Longabaugh
about 30 miles north
of Philadelphia,
and he grew up basically
on the canals.
He would work probably
20 hours a day sometimes,
and he would walk
25 miles each day.
But Harry had dreams.
He paid one whole dollar
for a library card,
which was quite a bit of money
at that time to a poor boy,
and he read these pulp novels
about Jesse James
and Buffalo Bill.
This is where dreams of the West
came into his head.
HUTTON:
I think it's difficult
to understand today
the lure of adventure
that existed
in the late 19th century,
especially for a young boy
like Harry
growing up in Pennsylvania.
The West offered everything
that the society of the East
seemed to work against,
and a lot of young men went West
in search of adventure.
NARRATOR:
In 1882, at the age of 14,
Longabaugh finally
got his opportunity
to realize his western dreams
after he landed a job
on his cousin's ranch
in Cortez, Colorado.
HATCH:
Harry Longabaugh
learned to be a cowboy.
He also wanted to see what was
over the next mountain
just like Butch did,
so he took off
and went to work for ranches
in Wyoming and Montana
and actually learned the trade
as a wandering cowboy
and was well respected.
He would have been probably
very happy his whole life
working as a cowboy.
NARRATOR:
Harry's cowboying days
came to an abrupt halt
in the winter of 1887.
A devastating blizzard
from the Canadian border all the
way down to southern Colorado
blanketed the western plains
in up to 100 feet of snow.
HATCH:
It was the most devastating
blizzard
in the history out here
in the West.
They found bodies of cattle
just stacked up for miles.
90% of the livestock
in Wyoming and Montana perished,
and along with it,
90% of the jobs for cowboys.
He went to the Black Hills
of South Dakota
and tried to find work there
and couldn't find work.
He was just a poor guy
who was down on his luck
and just needed a break.
NARRATOR:
With few options
to earn a living,
Harry turned to petty crime,
eventually landing himself
in jail for horse stealing
outside of Sundance, Wyoming.
A year later,
21-year-old Longabaugh
emerged from his prison stint
with a new nickname:
the Sundance Kid.
But he still had few
legitimate job prospects.
That's when he decided
to try his hand
at what seemed like
a sure thing.
(whistle blowing)
Since the completion
of the Transcontinental
Railroad in 1869,
trains had become attractive
targets to would-be bandits.
Outlaws like Jesse James
and Sam Bass
had made quick work
of railroad express cars,
usually packed with money
and lumbering through remote
locations far from local posses.
HATCH:
Most train robberies
were successful.
Everybody knew that.
Banks got a little more
difficult,
but trains were
fairly easy to rob
because they hadn't put
armed messengers on them.
They hadn't taken
any precautions whatsoever
with security.
NARRATOR:
To Sundance and his partners,
two other out-of-work cowboys,
an ideal spot for a train
robbery was Malta, Montana,
an isolated
cattle shipping depot
along the Great Northern
Railroad Line.
It was bone-chillingly cold
in the early morning hours
of November 29, 1892
when at 3:00 a.m.,
right on schedule,
the Great Northern's No. 23
pulled into Malta.
Like a scene straight
from one of his dime novels,
Sundance and his accomplices
slipped onto the train.
HATCH:
There were two safes
on the train,
and one of them they didn't know
the combination of.
The other one was opened
and they basically
found nothing.
He didn't realize, I guess,
that the banks
were closed on Sunday,
and so there were no express
boxes passing through.
NARRATOR:
Sundance and the men
grabbed what little money
they could find.
All the while, their bandanas
slipped from their faces,
allowing the train crew
to get a good look.
HATCH:
When they planned this robbery,
they were probably drunk,
to tell you the truth,
because they did not
plan it well.
Butch Cassidy knew
how to plan a robbery.
These three guys sat there
like the Three Stooges.
ROSS:
They were decent enough
to leave the passengers alone,
but you can be hung for this,
and three guys are walking away
with $8.33 each.
It's almost as if the railroad
pulled one on top of them.
DANIEL BUCK:
His accomplices went back
to the town they'd been hanging
around in before the holdup,
and they were recognized
and they ratted Sundance out.
Now he took off.
It was a huge cock-up
and they didn't make much money,
but Sundance got away.
NARRATOR:
Just days after the robbery,
a wanted poster
bearing a detailed
description of Sundance
offered a $500 reward
for his capture.
Now a wanted man,
Sundance retreated to the safety
of the desolate canyons
and mountain valleys
that ran across the West,
a hostile landscape where few
lawmen would dare to follow.
HUTTON:
One of the benefits of being
a western outlaw is space.
The American West is vast.
It's cut by canyons,
mountain ranges, river trails.
A lot of places,
there's only one way in
and so it's easy to guard,
it's easy to see who's coming,
and so these become
natural fortifications
for the outlaw bands to hide in.
And if you're a lawman
and especially if you're
just a civilian posse,
you're not going in there.
It's suicide.
NARRATOR:
The steep canyons
and unforgiving terrain
that made up a 1,500-mile
stretch of wilderness
that ran from northern Montana
all the way to New Mexico
was known as the Outlaw Trail.
The hideouts there were
notorious,
with names like Robber's Roost,
Hole in the Wall,
and Browns Park in Colorado:
a lush valley enclosed
by formidable mountains.
By 1890, Browns Park was home
to a handful of western outlaws,
including Butch Cassidy.
HATCH:
I believe he had decided
that a life of larceny
was where he was going to be
for the rest of his life,
whether it was stealing horses,
which he was very good at,
or robbing trains
or robbing banks.
So he needed people around him.
At some point, Sundance started
hanging out in that area.
They had a lot in common.
They both loved horses,
they were wranglers,
they loved to drink,
they loved to gamble
and they could talk larceny
all day long.
HUTTON:
Butch and Sundance seem
in many ways to be opposites.
As outgoing and gregarious,
happy-go-lucky as Butch is,
Sundance is much more taciturn.
He's much quieter, much more
potentially dangerous.
HATCH:
Butch saw in Sundance
someone he could trust,
number one,
and number two, someone he could
bounce his ideas off of,
and they would go nowhere else.
NARRATOR:
Before long,
other desperadoes like Sundance
were flocking
to the methodical Cassidy,
eager to embrace him
as both a teacher and a leader.
HATCH:
People had heard about Butch
and his masterminding,
probably of Telluride.
These guys were more
"quick draw."
They were more
of the henchman type.
They weren't very good
at planning a bank robbery
or planning a train robbery,
so they needed someone.
NARRATOR:
Cassidy, Sundance
and the rogue's gallery
of some 20 men
that now made up the Wild Bunch
set off from the Outlaw Trail,
targeting banks
and mining companies
that were springing up
across the West.
In August of 1896,
Cassidy and gang members
Bubb Meeks and Elzy Lay
knocked off the bank
in Montpelier, Idaho.
One year later,
Sundance and five other men
robbed the Butte County Bank
in Belle Fourche, South Dakota.
And Butch and his crew
boldly held up the payroll
of the Pleasant Valley Coal
Company in Castle Gate, Utah.
Most of the holdups
had the markings
of a Butch Cassidy caper:
impeccable execution,
breathless escapes
and not a single dead body.
VERDOIA:
Butch understood
one simple premise:
he didn't have to kill people.
Some would go into a robbery
and kill just to silence voices.
Butch said, "If my getaway
is clean enough,
I don't have to silence voices."
NARRATOR:
In between jobs,
the Wild Bunch retreated
to the isolated hideouts
of the Outlaw Trail,
where they openly enjoyed
the spoils of their misdeeds:
drinking, gambling
and spending time
with free-spirited women.
They had allies in the locals,
mostly family ranchers who were
being pushed from their land
by big-time corporate
cattle barons.
These ranchers were natural
sympathizers with bandits
who were making a living
picking the pockets
of moneyed businessmen.
VERDOIA:
Along the Outlaw Trail,
you have people
that become the backbone
of the Wild Bunch.
They're the ones
who provide the horses,
they're the ones
that offer a meal
when they're on the run.
These are the people that
many times
are able to keep their farms
or their ranches
because of a few $20 gold pieces
that are dropped behind
by Butch and Sundance
as they make their way.
Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid
had everybody helping them.
They are robbing the large
mining companies and banks,
so I think this endears them
to the small rancher
and the small farmer.
And so what happens here
is this mythology
starts to build up
and becomes almost
larger than life.
NARRATOR:
By 1898, news
of Wild Bunch robberies
began to make
national headlines.
Newspapers from San Francisco
to New York
were calling Butch
the "Boss Bad Man of the West."
Reporters painted
sensationalized,
dime novel-worthy stories
of Cassidy and his gang
that was said to include
500 men.
Soon it seemed that there wasn't
a crime west of the Mississippi
that couldn't be pegged
on Butch Cassidy
and his roving band
of desperadoes.
VERDOIA:
The Wild Bunch
became a mythical
and dangerous cancer
in the American West.
They were everywhere.
They were doing everything,
and their legend grew
dramatically before them.
NARRATOR:
Just as Butch and Sundance
started to have success
in the robbing business,
the once wild and free West
was being transformed.
Powerful railroad executives,
mining barons and cattle kings
were determined to usher in
their own brand
of law and order.
By the turn of the century,
corporations growing tired
of being robbed
by western outlaws
had a powerful ally
to turn to for help:
the Pinkerton National
Detective Agency.
Founded 50 years earlier
by Scottish immigrant
Allan Pinkerton, the agency was
America's first private
detective outfit for hire.
His logo,
a single unblinking eye
underlined by the words
"We Never Sleep,"
would add a new term
to the American lexicon:
private eye.
Pinkerton pioneered the use
of undercover agents
and webs of informants,
and during the Civil War
he was even tapped
by Abraham Lincoln
to run spy operations
for the Union Army.
Now Allan Pinkerton's son
William
was heading the firm's
western operation,
which was humming with business
from the banker's association,
railroads
and express car companies.
VERDOIA:
The Pinkertons have
over 2,000 full-time agents
and 30,000 paid informants
and part-time regulars.
Their standing force is larger
than the standing force of the
United States Army at its time.
And they get called out to bring
justice to the American West.
NARRATOR:
In place of local posses
and small-town sheriffs,
the Pinkertons
brought to the West
seasoned man-hunters
and the most modern
detective techniques.
VERDOIA:
They are methodical
and they're determined.
Every scrap of information
they get on an outlaw
is documented and put in a file.
What did he look like?
Did he have a moustache?
Where did he part his hair?
What was he most
commonly seen dressed in?
And they keep
this exhaustive, detailed,
centrally located databank,
if you will, available.
And their agents and officers
are constantly
on the telegraphs,
sending back messages
and receiving information
on where the bad guys are.
BUCK:
The Pinkertons embodied
the modern age.
They brought everything
together:
memoranda, files,
regional offices, photography
Everything.
HUTTON:
The Pinkertons became
the private police force
for the railroad barons,
for the mining barons,
for the capitalists
who were trying
to bring their brand of order
to the American West.
They had their own
private police force.
(telegraph key clicking)
NARRATOR:
As dawn broke on June 2, 1899,
the telegraph machine
at the Union Pacific Railroad
office in Omaha came to life.
"The No. 1 held up
a mile west of Wilcox.
Express car blown open,
contents gone."
(explosion)
In the desolate countryside
of Wyoming,
Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch
had struck again.
With their signature precision,
they had robbed
the Union Pacific
of over $50,000
in cash and bank notes,
leaving only the hollowed-out
wreckage of the express car
in their wake.
RUTTER:
The Wilcox robbery
is classic Butch Cassidy.
It is considered one
of the most flawless robberies
that he has ever committed.
HUTTON:
This was such a dramatic
and powerful scene
that it got the attention
of the press
and especially got the attention
of the Union Pacific Railroad.
VERDOIA:
The Union Pacific reaches
a breaking point.
This had become an overt,
violent crime, very costly.
Another one could be devastating
to the reputation
of the railroad.
E.H. Harriman,
who's chairman of the board,
reaches out to the Pinkertons
and says,
"I need my trains safe."
RUTTER:
Within 24 hours,
over 100 Pinkerton detectives,
sheriffs, deputies and lawmen
are in the field trying
to find the Wild Bunch.
That's a lot of men,
a lot of finances,
a lot of resources
trying to find these guys.
NARRATOR:
Rather than simply follow
hoof prints in the dirt,
Pinkerton agents began
methodically tracking
serial numbers on the banknotes
stolen at Wilcox.
Soon, the stolen paper
began to surface
in towns across the region.
Unwittingly,
the Wild Bunch members
were illuminating
their own trail.
BUCK:
They're using national methods
to go after the Wild Bunch,
publishing serial numbers of
currency that had been stolen
and sending it to banks,
railroads,
hotels, police departments.
RUTTER:
They were able to trace bills
in different locations
of where this money
had been spent.
They could begin
to see patterns.
Because of the dynamite
blowing it up,
a whole bunch of the bills
had cuts on the bottom,
and so they knew that
if they got one of the bills
that had a cut
in this certain way,
it was from this robbery.
BUCK:
All of this stuff worked
against these antiquated
horse-powered cowboys
who were trying to steal
this money.
You know, they're up
against serial numbers.
No contest.
NARRATOR:
The first of the Wild Bunch
to fall was Lonnie Logan,
who had exchanged
some of the stolen loot
at a bank in Montana.
He soon found his hideout
surrounded by Pinkerton agents.
When he tried to escape
out the backdoor,
he was promptly gunned down.
VERDOIA:
So all these forces are coming
together against the Wild Bunch:
centralized information,
undercover agents,
mobile strike forces.
The world of Butch and Sundance
is shrinking, shrinking,
shrinking more rapidly
than they can push back
against it.
They were being chased
by a system,
and this system was
very sophisticated.
And for the Pinkertons
to be able to capture Butch
and Sundance and advertise it
would have been a major,
major promotional feat for them.
They would have gained
client after client.
NARRATOR:
Nine months after
the Wilcox robbery,
Pinkerton detective
Frank Murray received word
that the stolen banknotes
were popping up
around Alma, New Mexico.
The money was now leading
the Pinkertons
right to the mastermind himself:
Butch Cassidy.
Hiding in plain sight,
Butch was working as a cowboy
at a local ranch.
But before Murray
could arrest him,
Butch was tipped off
and fled town,
just narrowly escaping capture.
HUTTON:
It's like a noose
getting tighter and tighter,
and Butch is smart enough
to understand this.
He's smart enough
to see that now,
all the Pinkertons' resources
are focused on the Wild Bunch
and they're never going
to give up.
They won't stop.
NARRATOR:
With the Pinkertons
hot on their heels,
Butch, Sundance and the core
of the Wild Bunch
secretly rendezvoused
in the roaring cattle town
of Fort Worth, Texas.
In its red light district
known as Hell's Half Acre,
thousands of cowboys flocked
to saloons and bordellos.
It was the perfect place
for the gang to disappear
and plan their next move.
Decked out like the business
moguls they had been robbing,
the Wild Bunch decided
to pose for a picture.
News Carver, Harvey Logan,
Ben the Tall Texan,
the Sundance Kid
and Butch Cassidy
looked nothing like
a band of desperados.
Pitched forward in his seat,
Sundance seemed tense and eager
while Butch sat back,
donning a puckish smile.
HUTTON:
I think perhaps for Butch,
it's almost a nostalgic
photograph.
I think he's done.
I think Butch understood
that the West had changed.
There was no way to fight
against the railroad,
against the bankers,
against the Pinkertons.
It was time to move on.
NARRATOR:
For Butch and Sundance,
Fort Worth was the end
of the trail.
No matter how superlative
their skills as outlaws,
it seemed to be
only a matter of time
before they were brought down.
Bounties for the Wild Bunch
were growing by the day,
and finding safe sanctuary
on the Outlaw Trail
was no longer a given.
VERDOIA:
Butch Cassidy is getting fed up
of a life on the run.
He doesn't have
any sense of home,
he has no sense of roots
and he has to live
one night to the next,
constantly looking out
for the Pinkertons
coming at him over his shoulder.
RUTTER:
The Wilcox robbery really
started to get him thinking
he had to get
out of the business.
It was only a matter of time
before he was either
going to be shot
or captured and put in prison.
NARRATOR:
As Butch and Sundance saw it,
there was only one option
if they wanted to remain
free and alive:
to flee the country.
KOLPAN:
Butch wants to go to a place
that's more like
the western United States was,
say, 20 years before,
where you don't have
the Pinkertons to worry about
and where law enforcement
isn't quite as effective.
BUCK:
In those days, Argentina
was the land of opportunity.
There was a lot of interaction
between the American West
and Argentina:
cattlemen going down there
to buy cattle,
there were settlers
going down there
HATCH:
The New West was closing in
on them,
so they wanted to go back
to the Old West,
and I think they saw
in Argentina the Old West.
NARRATOR:
Butch welcomed any member
of the gang to travel with them.
No one took him up on the offer.
But if further proof was needed
that things had become too hot
in the U.S.,
it wasn't long in coming.
Soon after the flash bulb fired
in that Fort Worth photo studio,
the Wild Bunch was once again
scattering for cover.
HUTTON:
The photographer put this
photograph in his window
as advertisement for his skill.
Unfortunately,
a local lawman goes by,
recognizes one of the boys
in the photo,
and soon that photo
is circulated
throughout the Pinkerton
detective agency
and throughout the West.
They made fliers with pictures
of Butch Cassidy,
the Sundance Kid,
all of the Wild Bunch.
They plastered
those pictures up everywhere,
and they had them in the hands
of all their operatives.
Now indeed you couldn't escape
the eye that never slept
because it really had you.
NARRATOR:
Two months had passed
since the Fort Worth photo
revealed their identities,
and Butch and Sundance
had managed to elude capture.
By February 1901,
they were making plans
to board a steamer
bound for Argentina.
With time to spare
before their ship set sail,
the two men,
posing as Wyoming cattle barons,
disappeared into the chaotic
metropolis of New York City.
VERDOIA:
The trip to New York
is a complete dichotomy.
Here they had spent years
ripping off mining companies,
ripping off the railroad,
ripping off banks,
and where do they choose
to flee?
They flee to the belly
of the beast.
They take anonymity
from New York City.
It's perfect Butch Cassidy.
How do you disappear?
Disappear among them.
NARRATOR:
While no other member
of the Wild Bunch
had heeded Butch and Sundance's
call to flee the West,
the famous outlaw duo
were traveling
with a third companion:
Sundance's girlfriend,
the mysterious Etta Place.
VERDOIA:
Virtually everything about
Etta Place is conjecture.
Was that her name?
Likely not.
Was she a schoolteacher?
Or was she a prostitute?
Nobody really knows.
One thing that seems certain
is that the Sundance Kid
apparently believes that
with Etta Place,
there's a reason to live.
There's a reason
to think of tomorrow.
There's a reason to flee.
NARRATOR:
Flush with their
ill-gotten gains,
Butch, Sundance and Etta
lived the high life
in a world unlike anything
they had ever known.
They could marvel
at monuments of modernity
like the Brooklyn Bridge.
Elevated trains rattled overhead
and electric lights
illuminated street corners
as they made their way
to New York's
famed restaurants
and playhouses.
Sundance and Etta,
posing as husband and wife,
even found time to visit
DeYoung's photo studio,
one of the finest in New York.
KOLPAN:
They were a very well-mannered
and soft-spoken couple,
and DeYoung probably thought
that they were cattle royalty
from the West.
They even go to Tiffany's,
and a pendant watch
is purchased for Etta.
They must have had themselves
a high old time.
NARRATOR:
On February 20, 1901, the trio
sailed out of New York Harbor.
As the Statue of Liberty
faded from view,
Butch and Sundance could look
back on a decade on the run
and see that their own freedom
was now within reach.
HUTTON:
It seemed like they had
a chance to start over,
to reinvent themselves.
The old days are over.
Butch and Sundance get out
just in time.
NARRATOR:
As Butch and Sundance
were making their exit,
the last remnants
of the Wild West
were finally being reined in.
After the Wilcox robbery,
trains began to employ
armed security
and the Union Pacific created
lightning-fast cars
stocked with armed man-hunters.
In just months,
the Wild Bunch members
who had decided to stay
in America
began to meet the end
their leaders had foreseen.
HATCH:
The Wild Bunch
was still in operation,
but they didn't have
their mastermind
to be able to plan
their robberies,
and they weren't going so well.
So these people went back
to their life of crime.
Harvey Logan was in on a robbery
in Colorado and was chased down
and ended up committing suicide
rather than be taken.
You had the Tall Texan,
he could have gone
to South American also.
Instead, he was beaten to death
with a mallet
on a train that
he was trying to rob.
So the Wild Bunch, one by one,
ran into the arms of the law
and were dealt with
either by death or by prison.
NARRATOR:
Two years after Butch
and Sundance
disappeared from the scene,
New York audiences
were being captivated
by Edwin Porter's film
The Great Train Robbery.
It was one of the first
motion pictures
to tell a complete story:
a Western inspired
by the daring exploits
of train robbers
like Butch and Sundance.
HUTTON:
By 1903, the story
of the Wild West,
the story of Butch and Sundance,
has already become fodder
for mass entertainment.
So famous is The Wild Bunch
that Buffalo Bill Cody
in his Wild West Show,
which is playing not only
all across America
but to the crown heads
of Europe,
features one of their
train robberies.
I mean, I think
to the American public,
Butch and Sundance are gone.
It's over.
That's why they're
making movies.
It's a show, it's a show now.
NARRATOR:
For the bankers and railroad men
who had been the locus
of their crime spree,
there was nothing romantic
about the Wild Bunch.
Even though Butch and Sundance
hadn't pulled off a job
in years,
they had not been forgotten.
Pinkerton agents continued
to work the case,
chasing down leads
across the country.
The all-seeing eye
was not about to let
the West's greatest living
outlaws simply vanish.
In the winter of 1903,
Pinkerton informants
in Pennsylvania
intercepted a letter
Sundance wrote to his family,
and just like that,
their cover was blown.
BUCK:
Butch and Sundance were
about as far away from Wyoming
as you could get
and yet, all it took was
one letter being opened,
and now they know
where they are:
Argentina.
NARRATOR:
Butch and Sundance had arrived
in Argentina two years earlier,
and together with Etta
they settled into the quiet
domestic life of ranchers
on a homestead in the remote
region of Patagonia.
They built a four-room ranch
house out of split cypress trees
and purchased
300 head of cattle,
1,300 sheep and 28 horses.
HUTTON:
All the evidence
is that they're reformed.
They're gonna go straight.
They made a lot of friends.
They seemed to be
respectable members
of the community down there.
There's even a wonderful
photograph taken of them
with their dog in front
of their ranch house.
Everything seemed to be
going well for them,
and then the Pinkertons
found them.
The Pinkertons began
to distribute flyers
with their pictures on it
in Argentina,
warning all the local
law enforcement officials
that these were notorious
American outlaws.
HATCH:
Word came down
to the local constable
and he was ordered
to arrest them.
Butch and Sundance knew
that their time was up
and they had to take off.
HUTTON:
The fact that you're
being hounded,
that they won't let you go,
sort of pushes them, I think,
back to the Outlaw Trail.
NARRATOR:
Etta Place, the woman who had
been a steady presence
in the lives of Butch
and Sundance
ever since they decided
to flee the country,
abruptly disappeared
from the scene.
HUTTON:
Etta simply vanishes.
We don't know when she leaves,
but she's gone from their lives.
And when she leaves,
their lives begin to spiral
out of control.
NARRATOR:
On the run from the Argentine
authorities and in need of cash,
Butch and Sundance returned
to what they knew best.
They slipped across the border
into Bolivia,
where they carefully cased
the country's banks and mines.
On November 4, 1908,
they robbed two payroll guards
from the Aramayo silver mine
and disappeared
into the unforgiving
Bolivian backcountry.
HUTTON:
It's unclear that they even
really know a good escape route,
and they're really heading
into the unknown.
This is a very different world
from Wyoming.
They don't have the support
of the local population.
They don't know all the trails.
They barely speak the language.
This is a dangerous game
they're playing.
NARRATOR:
Within hours of the heist, the
telegraph lines began humming.
Even in the wilds of Bolivia,
technology had caught up
with Butch and Sundance.
Every town in the area
was supplied
with descriptions
of the gringo bandits.
Military patrols fanned out
across the region,
combing every road,
ravine and ranch.
Butch and Sundance
made their way north
to the desolate mining town
of San Vicente.
There, they took shelter
in a house
while they planned
their next move.
HUTTON:
The news of the payroll robbery
has already reached the town,
and the mayor of the town goes
and informs the local military
that these two Americans,
strange Americans
are staying in town.
Well, the captain of the guard
sends an official back
to question these gringos.
HATCH:
He led three people
down to this home.
One of the soldiers
went onto the patio,
drew his weapon.
Butch saw his silhouette
through the window
and pulled out his six-gun
(gunshot)
and shot the guy dead.
The first person,
the only person,
Butch ever killed.
HUTTON:
Meanwhile, the word goes out
and other residents of the town
heavily armed
now come to surround the house.
BUCK:
They're surrounded,
they're not going anywhere.
There's no way
they're getting out of there.
(gunshots)
HUTTON:
A quick, violent
gun battle follows.
The bullets go right through
the adobe walls of the building.
(gunshots stop)
And then all is quiet.
It was morning
before they dared to go inside.
They carefully
made their way in,
and there were Butch
and Sundance, dead.
Sundance was laying
against a wall,
a bullet hole in his head.
Butch also had a bullet hole
in his head
and was laying on the floor
next to Sundance.
Butch killed Sundance.
It was a murder-suicide.
He shot Sundance in the forehead
and then turned the gun
on himself,
shot himself in the temple.
I think they realized
that this was the end,
and they were just
tired of running.
NARRATOR:
As Butch and Sundance
were laid to rest
in unmarked Bolivian graves,
American newspapers
were declaring an end
to the Wild West.
In a fitting epitaph,
The Washington Post declared
that the notorious gang
known as the Wild Bunch
had "disappeared with the march
of civilization."
But there were many
who simply could not believe
these famous western outlaws
had met their end.
HUTTON:
Almost immediately,
stories began that they
hadn't been killed in Bolivia.
We don't want the outlaws
to die.
We certainly
don't want them to die
the way Butch and Sundance died.
As wild as they were,
as bad as they were,
they still represented something
that Americans embrace:
that wild freedom.
And when they're gone,
the Wild West is gone.
NARRATOR:
In the early morning hours
of June 2, 1899,
two men crept along a desolate
stretch of train track
outside Wilcox, Wyoming.
MICHAEL RUTTER:
The Flyer is coming
down the tracks.
They're about ready to cross
a wood trestle bridge,
and we see a couple guys
with a lantern,
shaking it back and forth
to stop the train.
KEN VERDOIA:
Usually, it meant a washed out
track or damaged track ahead,
and the train should stop.
THOM ROSS:
Any engineer
in his right mind goes,
"We've got to lock up
the brakes."
(brakes screeching)
RUTTER:
The train stops
before the trestle.
The people on the train
are nervous.
We don't stop trains
in the middle of the desert,
but it just happened.
THOM HATCH:
The engineer thought
that the bridge might have been
washed out.
Little did he know that these
were robbers up on the tracks.
VERDOIA:
They pull apart
passenger cars,
separate them from the engine
and the car
which carries the safe.
NARRATOR:
Unable to force their way in,
the bandits packed the door
with explosives instead.
HATCH:
They had used too much dynamite.
(explosion)
Blew the car sky high.
It just demolished the car.
It was just a bunch
of twisted metal.
VERDOIA:
The cash and the coins
are thrown all over
the windswept plain.
Money, currency,
coin everywhere.
NARRATOR:
In an instant,
the holdup crew had made off
with $50,000 in cash,
banknotes and gold
in the most spectacular robbery
the West had ever seen.
GERALD KOLPAN:
In today's money,
that's something
over a million dollars.
That's in one heist.
NARRATOR:
In an era that saw
cold-blooded killers
like Jesse James
and the Younger Brothers
terrorize the West,
this job had all the markings
of a different kind of gang:
a notorious group of men
known as the Wild Bunch.
VERDOIA:
They would visit havoc
upon banks, railroads,
mining companies,
but they are really cut
from a different cloth
because they don't leave blood,
mayhem and bodies in their wake.
NARRATOR:
Their leader, Butch Cassidy,
was a charismatic thief
who had elevated bank and train
robbery into an art form.
RUTTER:
The Wilcox robbery
is classic Butch Cassidy.
It's what made Butch
a rock star.
He became a national celebrity.
NARRATOR:
But the freewheeling world of
Butch Cassidy and his sidekick,
a moody Easterner with a fast
gun known as the Sundance Kid,
was based on a frontier order
that was rapidly
fading into myth.
VERDOIA:
The West is being crisscrossed
by rail lines,
mines are everywhere,
cities are exploding,
and this era of open opportunity
is drawing to a close
at the end of the 19th century.
The story of Butch and Sundance
plays out
as that curtain is coming down.
PAUL HUTTON:
The game is changing.
The railroads don't care
how much it costs.
They don't care what trouble
they have to go to.
They're going to end
the robbing.
Butch Cassidy
and The Sundance Kid
are the last of the wild riders
of the West,
and when they're gone,
the Wild West is gone.
NARRATOR:
Though he would one day be known
as the most fearsome bad man
of the West,
Butch Cassidy was born
Robert Leroy Parker in 1866
to a family of devout Mormons.
His father, Maximilian,
who was among the earliest
Mormon settlers,
could barely eke out a living
from the parched earth of their
homestead in southern Utah.
He was often forced
to take work far from home
for months at a time.
With his father gone,
Robert's mother, Anne,
a tough and deeply
religious woman,
looked to her eldest son to help
raise their growing family.
HATCH:
Bob Parker was the oldest
of 13 kids,
and so he became
the surrogate father,
and he would take care
of the kids.
Bob was like a big kid himself,
and he was
throughout his whole life.
He was a very gregarious man
who made friends wherever he
went because of his personality.
His mother home-schooled
the kids, mostly on the Bible.
She would hold services there.
He absolutely adored his mother.
RUTTER:
His mother was very devout.
The family was strict.
There was a confirmed
right and wrong.
There were fundamental
Christian values in the family.
NARRATOR:
At the age of 13, Robert
took a job on a nearby ranch
to help earn money
to support his family.
It was there that he met a man
who would forever alter
the direction of his life:
a small-time cattle rustler
named Mike Cassidy,
who taught him the finer points
of how to survive as a cowboy.
VERDOIA:
Mike Cassidy.
He's a well-known horseman
and he's great with a revolver,
an excellent shot and marksman,
and Cassidy takes a liking
to little Bobby Parker,
teaches him how to really
ride a horse,
teaches him how to handle
a revolver,
how to become a good marksman,
and more importantly,
Mike Cassidy shows him
how to cut corners.
There's big cattle operations,
and they'll never miss it
if one or two or ten of the herd
gets cut away
and goes to another place.
And Robert Parker
watched Mike Cassidy
acquire cattle and horses
in that fashion.
NARRATOR:
For Robert, Mike Cassidy
was a man free from the poverty
and religious confines
that dominated his life.
Cassidy filled his head
with visions of a wider world:
a world where adventure
and greater paydays
were within reach.
And by the time he was 18,
Robert was itching
to strike out on his own.
VERDOIA:
If you're Robert Leroy Parker,
you look at your dad, who played
by the rules and lost,
worked himself to the bone
and had nothing to show for it.
You look at Mike Cassidy,
a man who cuts corners,
takes a little here,
takes a little there,
lives by his wits
and is always getting ahead.
And so he rides
in the direction,
if you will, of Mike Cassidy.
He rides away.
Will he ever be back?
He promises he will,
but will he ever be back?
NARRATOR:
In the summer of 1884,
18-year-old Robert Parker
rode into the mining town
of Telluride, Colorado.
For a young man
seeking adventure,
he had come to the right place.
In the early 1880s,
Telluride was booming.
Gold fever was drawing men
from across the West:
rugged frontiersmen who packed
Telluride's famed saloons,
gambling halls
and houses of ill repute.
HUTTON:
Robert Parker goes to a world
that couldn't be more different.
This is the wild boomtown world
of the mining camp,
so a lot of gambling,
a lot of drinking,
a lot of prostitution,
a lot of young men heavily armed
and fueled by alcohol.
HATCH:
He went in there
with a Mormon mind,
and within a week or two,
I'm sure he'd been
in every saloon there
and he learned how to drink
with the best of them
and he gambled
with the best of them.
He didn't feel comfortable
in Mormon country,
but he felt comfortable
in Telluride.
NARRATOR:
Young Robert Parker soon grew
dismayed with life as a miner.
By the time he rode
into Telluride,
many of the major claims
had already been staked.
Parker was resigned
to take a grueling job
hauling gold and silver ore
by mule down from the mountains.
HUTTON:
To find yourself,
you know, almost like ants,
moving through this mountainside
and just moving dirt and moving
stone for someone else
and for someone else's wealth
I think probably grated
on someone like Parker.
VERDOIA:
Going in the mines
each and every day,
Robert Parker looks at that
as a sucker's bet.
You're coming out bone weary,
you could die down there,
and what have you earned
at the end of the day?
But on the corner
is the San Miguel bank.
NARRATOR:
With the riches being hauled out
of the hills ringing Telluride,
Parker was sure the local bank
was well stocked with tender.
For Parker
and his two new friends,
a lapsed Mormon
named Matt Warner
and his ornery brother-in-law
Tom McCarty,
the bank was an auspicious
target.
But even in the isolated towns
of the West,
bank robberies were
rarely successful.
Most were ill-planned,
played out at the spur
of the moment
after too many hours
at the saloon.
(gunshots)
No sooner had the robbers
cleaned out a safe
than the townspeople amassed
to gun them down.
Parker was undeterred
by the foreboding odds.
HUTTON:
From the very beginning,
he had a methodology.
He wasn't just
one of these wild riders
like the movies make so famous.
He was very methodical,
he was very careful
and he was very intelligent.
VERDOIA:
Parker knew it's not just
about where the money is,
but knowing when it will be
at its peak.
When will the cash arrive?
Who handles the cash?
How many people
are in the building
at the time when the cash
is at its peak?
And more importantly than that,
how will I make my escape?
NARRATOR:
Just after noon
on June 24, 1889,
Parker and his cohorts
saddled up
alongside the San Miguel
Valley Bank.
They waited
until the cashier left,
leaving only a single teller
inside.
Warner and Parker
casually entered the bank
and demanded the cash.
They walk out
and they ride like hell.
No one even knows
the bank has been robbed.
NARRATOR:
By the time a posse was
assembled, it was too late.
Parker's masterstroke,
and what would become
his signature technique,
was to set up a series of horse
relays along the exit route
where the outlaws could trade
their played-out mounts
for fresh ones.
He figured no posse,
no matter how determined,
could keep pace with bandits
in constant supply
of steady horsepower.
VERDOIA:
He's been working
days and weeks in advance.
He's been storing fresh horses,
building alliances with people
along the way.
This is extraordinary planning,
and this is the genius
of Robert Parker.
He had planned the escape
even better than he had
planned the holdup.
ROSS:
This is the first
of his great escapades
where they wind up
with big money.
I mean, you walk away
from a bank with $20,000,
you're looking at
what a cowboy might take him
five or ten years to make
if he saved every penny.
RUTTER:
This is a serious crime.
It's one thing to take a few
cows or take a couple horses,
but this is big-time robbery.
There's no going back.
There is no going back.
NARRATOR:
Parker knew his criminal deed
would break the heart
of his pious mother
and decided it was best
to deflect shame from his family
by changing his name.
He would now honor
the influence of his mentor
and answer to Butch Cassidy.
(trains rumbling on tracks)
NARRATOR:
On the other side
of the country,
in the mill town
of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania,
an introverted young boy
by the name of Harry Longabaugh
could only dream
of an adventurous life
on the open range.
Raised in the gray
and claustrophobic
industrial world of the East,
it must have seemed
inconceivable
that he would one day
play a role
in one the West's
greatest legends.
HATCH:
Sundance was born
Harry Longabaugh
about 30 miles north
of Philadelphia,
and he grew up basically
on the canals.
He would work probably
20 hours a day sometimes,
and he would walk
25 miles each day.
But Harry had dreams.
He paid one whole dollar
for a library card,
which was quite a bit of money
at that time to a poor boy,
and he read these pulp novels
about Jesse James
and Buffalo Bill.
This is where dreams of the West
came into his head.
HUTTON:
I think it's difficult
to understand today
the lure of adventure
that existed
in the late 19th century,
especially for a young boy
like Harry
growing up in Pennsylvania.
The West offered everything
that the society of the East
seemed to work against,
and a lot of young men went West
in search of adventure.
NARRATOR:
In 1882, at the age of 14,
Longabaugh finally
got his opportunity
to realize his western dreams
after he landed a job
on his cousin's ranch
in Cortez, Colorado.
HATCH:
Harry Longabaugh
learned to be a cowboy.
He also wanted to see what was
over the next mountain
just like Butch did,
so he took off
and went to work for ranches
in Wyoming and Montana
and actually learned the trade
as a wandering cowboy
and was well respected.
He would have been probably
very happy his whole life
working as a cowboy.
NARRATOR:
Harry's cowboying days
came to an abrupt halt
in the winter of 1887.
A devastating blizzard
from the Canadian border all the
way down to southern Colorado
blanketed the western plains
in up to 100 feet of snow.
HATCH:
It was the most devastating
blizzard
in the history out here
in the West.
They found bodies of cattle
just stacked up for miles.
90% of the livestock
in Wyoming and Montana perished,
and along with it,
90% of the jobs for cowboys.
He went to the Black Hills
of South Dakota
and tried to find work there
and couldn't find work.
He was just a poor guy
who was down on his luck
and just needed a break.
NARRATOR:
With few options
to earn a living,
Harry turned to petty crime,
eventually landing himself
in jail for horse stealing
outside of Sundance, Wyoming.
A year later,
21-year-old Longabaugh
emerged from his prison stint
with a new nickname:
the Sundance Kid.
But he still had few
legitimate job prospects.
That's when he decided
to try his hand
at what seemed like
a sure thing.
(whistle blowing)
Since the completion
of the Transcontinental
Railroad in 1869,
trains had become attractive
targets to would-be bandits.
Outlaws like Jesse James
and Sam Bass
had made quick work
of railroad express cars,
usually packed with money
and lumbering through remote
locations far from local posses.
HATCH:
Most train robberies
were successful.
Everybody knew that.
Banks got a little more
difficult,
but trains were
fairly easy to rob
because they hadn't put
armed messengers on them.
They hadn't taken
any precautions whatsoever
with security.
NARRATOR:
To Sundance and his partners,
two other out-of-work cowboys,
an ideal spot for a train
robbery was Malta, Montana,
an isolated
cattle shipping depot
along the Great Northern
Railroad Line.
It was bone-chillingly cold
in the early morning hours
of November 29, 1892
when at 3:00 a.m.,
right on schedule,
the Great Northern's No. 23
pulled into Malta.
Like a scene straight
from one of his dime novels,
Sundance and his accomplices
slipped onto the train.
HATCH:
There were two safes
on the train,
and one of them they didn't know
the combination of.
The other one was opened
and they basically
found nothing.
He didn't realize, I guess,
that the banks
were closed on Sunday,
and so there were no express
boxes passing through.
NARRATOR:
Sundance and the men
grabbed what little money
they could find.
All the while, their bandanas
slipped from their faces,
allowing the train crew
to get a good look.
HATCH:
When they planned this robbery,
they were probably drunk,
to tell you the truth,
because they did not
plan it well.
Butch Cassidy knew
how to plan a robbery.
These three guys sat there
like the Three Stooges.
ROSS:
They were decent enough
to leave the passengers alone,
but you can be hung for this,
and three guys are walking away
with $8.33 each.
It's almost as if the railroad
pulled one on top of them.
DANIEL BUCK:
His accomplices went back
to the town they'd been hanging
around in before the holdup,
and they were recognized
and they ratted Sundance out.
Now he took off.
It was a huge cock-up
and they didn't make much money,
but Sundance got away.
NARRATOR:
Just days after the robbery,
a wanted poster
bearing a detailed
description of Sundance
offered a $500 reward
for his capture.
Now a wanted man,
Sundance retreated to the safety
of the desolate canyons
and mountain valleys
that ran across the West,
a hostile landscape where few
lawmen would dare to follow.
HUTTON:
One of the benefits of being
a western outlaw is space.
The American West is vast.
It's cut by canyons,
mountain ranges, river trails.
A lot of places,
there's only one way in
and so it's easy to guard,
it's easy to see who's coming,
and so these become
natural fortifications
for the outlaw bands to hide in.
And if you're a lawman
and especially if you're
just a civilian posse,
you're not going in there.
It's suicide.
NARRATOR:
The steep canyons
and unforgiving terrain
that made up a 1,500-mile
stretch of wilderness
that ran from northern Montana
all the way to New Mexico
was known as the Outlaw Trail.
The hideouts there were
notorious,
with names like Robber's Roost,
Hole in the Wall,
and Browns Park in Colorado:
a lush valley enclosed
by formidable mountains.
By 1890, Browns Park was home
to a handful of western outlaws,
including Butch Cassidy.
HATCH:
I believe he had decided
that a life of larceny
was where he was going to be
for the rest of his life,
whether it was stealing horses,
which he was very good at,
or robbing trains
or robbing banks.
So he needed people around him.
At some point, Sundance started
hanging out in that area.
They had a lot in common.
They both loved horses,
they were wranglers,
they loved to drink,
they loved to gamble
and they could talk larceny
all day long.
HUTTON:
Butch and Sundance seem
in many ways to be opposites.
As outgoing and gregarious,
happy-go-lucky as Butch is,
Sundance is much more taciturn.
He's much quieter, much more
potentially dangerous.
HATCH:
Butch saw in Sundance
someone he could trust,
number one,
and number two, someone he could
bounce his ideas off of,
and they would go nowhere else.
NARRATOR:
Before long,
other desperadoes like Sundance
were flocking
to the methodical Cassidy,
eager to embrace him
as both a teacher and a leader.
HATCH:
People had heard about Butch
and his masterminding,
probably of Telluride.
These guys were more
"quick draw."
They were more
of the henchman type.
They weren't very good
at planning a bank robbery
or planning a train robbery,
so they needed someone.
NARRATOR:
Cassidy, Sundance
and the rogue's gallery
of some 20 men
that now made up the Wild Bunch
set off from the Outlaw Trail,
targeting banks
and mining companies
that were springing up
across the West.
In August of 1896,
Cassidy and gang members
Bubb Meeks and Elzy Lay
knocked off the bank
in Montpelier, Idaho.
One year later,
Sundance and five other men
robbed the Butte County Bank
in Belle Fourche, South Dakota.
And Butch and his crew
boldly held up the payroll
of the Pleasant Valley Coal
Company in Castle Gate, Utah.
Most of the holdups
had the markings
of a Butch Cassidy caper:
impeccable execution,
breathless escapes
and not a single dead body.
VERDOIA:
Butch understood
one simple premise:
he didn't have to kill people.
Some would go into a robbery
and kill just to silence voices.
Butch said, "If my getaway
is clean enough,
I don't have to silence voices."
NARRATOR:
In between jobs,
the Wild Bunch retreated
to the isolated hideouts
of the Outlaw Trail,
where they openly enjoyed
the spoils of their misdeeds:
drinking, gambling
and spending time
with free-spirited women.
They had allies in the locals,
mostly family ranchers who were
being pushed from their land
by big-time corporate
cattle barons.
These ranchers were natural
sympathizers with bandits
who were making a living
picking the pockets
of moneyed businessmen.
VERDOIA:
Along the Outlaw Trail,
you have people
that become the backbone
of the Wild Bunch.
They're the ones
who provide the horses,
they're the ones
that offer a meal
when they're on the run.
These are the people that
many times
are able to keep their farms
or their ranches
because of a few $20 gold pieces
that are dropped behind
by Butch and Sundance
as they make their way.
Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid
had everybody helping them.
They are robbing the large
mining companies and banks,
so I think this endears them
to the small rancher
and the small farmer.
And so what happens here
is this mythology
starts to build up
and becomes almost
larger than life.
NARRATOR:
By 1898, news
of Wild Bunch robberies
began to make
national headlines.
Newspapers from San Francisco
to New York
were calling Butch
the "Boss Bad Man of the West."
Reporters painted
sensationalized,
dime novel-worthy stories
of Cassidy and his gang
that was said to include
500 men.
Soon it seemed that there wasn't
a crime west of the Mississippi
that couldn't be pegged
on Butch Cassidy
and his roving band
of desperadoes.
VERDOIA:
The Wild Bunch
became a mythical
and dangerous cancer
in the American West.
They were everywhere.
They were doing everything,
and their legend grew
dramatically before them.
NARRATOR:
Just as Butch and Sundance
started to have success
in the robbing business,
the once wild and free West
was being transformed.
Powerful railroad executives,
mining barons and cattle kings
were determined to usher in
their own brand
of law and order.
By the turn of the century,
corporations growing tired
of being robbed
by western outlaws
had a powerful ally
to turn to for help:
the Pinkerton National
Detective Agency.
Founded 50 years earlier
by Scottish immigrant
Allan Pinkerton, the agency was
America's first private
detective outfit for hire.
His logo,
a single unblinking eye
underlined by the words
"We Never Sleep,"
would add a new term
to the American lexicon:
private eye.
Pinkerton pioneered the use
of undercover agents
and webs of informants,
and during the Civil War
he was even tapped
by Abraham Lincoln
to run spy operations
for the Union Army.
Now Allan Pinkerton's son
William
was heading the firm's
western operation,
which was humming with business
from the banker's association,
railroads
and express car companies.
VERDOIA:
The Pinkertons have
over 2,000 full-time agents
and 30,000 paid informants
and part-time regulars.
Their standing force is larger
than the standing force of the
United States Army at its time.
And they get called out to bring
justice to the American West.
NARRATOR:
In place of local posses
and small-town sheriffs,
the Pinkertons
brought to the West
seasoned man-hunters
and the most modern
detective techniques.
VERDOIA:
They are methodical
and they're determined.
Every scrap of information
they get on an outlaw
is documented and put in a file.
What did he look like?
Did he have a moustache?
Where did he part his hair?
What was he most
commonly seen dressed in?
And they keep
this exhaustive, detailed,
centrally located databank,
if you will, available.
And their agents and officers
are constantly
on the telegraphs,
sending back messages
and receiving information
on where the bad guys are.
BUCK:
The Pinkertons embodied
the modern age.
They brought everything
together:
memoranda, files,
regional offices, photography
Everything.
HUTTON:
The Pinkertons became
the private police force
for the railroad barons,
for the mining barons,
for the capitalists
who were trying
to bring their brand of order
to the American West.
They had their own
private police force.
(telegraph key clicking)
NARRATOR:
As dawn broke on June 2, 1899,
the telegraph machine
at the Union Pacific Railroad
office in Omaha came to life.
"The No. 1 held up
a mile west of Wilcox.
Express car blown open,
contents gone."
(explosion)
In the desolate countryside
of Wyoming,
Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch
had struck again.
With their signature precision,
they had robbed
the Union Pacific
of over $50,000
in cash and bank notes,
leaving only the hollowed-out
wreckage of the express car
in their wake.
RUTTER:
The Wilcox robbery
is classic Butch Cassidy.
It is considered one
of the most flawless robberies
that he has ever committed.
HUTTON:
This was such a dramatic
and powerful scene
that it got the attention
of the press
and especially got the attention
of the Union Pacific Railroad.
VERDOIA:
The Union Pacific reaches
a breaking point.
This had become an overt,
violent crime, very costly.
Another one could be devastating
to the reputation
of the railroad.
E.H. Harriman,
who's chairman of the board,
reaches out to the Pinkertons
and says,
"I need my trains safe."
RUTTER:
Within 24 hours,
over 100 Pinkerton detectives,
sheriffs, deputies and lawmen
are in the field trying
to find the Wild Bunch.
That's a lot of men,
a lot of finances,
a lot of resources
trying to find these guys.
NARRATOR:
Rather than simply follow
hoof prints in the dirt,
Pinkerton agents began
methodically tracking
serial numbers on the banknotes
stolen at Wilcox.
Soon, the stolen paper
began to surface
in towns across the region.
Unwittingly,
the Wild Bunch members
were illuminating
their own trail.
BUCK:
They're using national methods
to go after the Wild Bunch,
publishing serial numbers of
currency that had been stolen
and sending it to banks,
railroads,
hotels, police departments.
RUTTER:
They were able to trace bills
in different locations
of where this money
had been spent.
They could begin
to see patterns.
Because of the dynamite
blowing it up,
a whole bunch of the bills
had cuts on the bottom,
and so they knew that
if they got one of the bills
that had a cut
in this certain way,
it was from this robbery.
BUCK:
All of this stuff worked
against these antiquated
horse-powered cowboys
who were trying to steal
this money.
You know, they're up
against serial numbers.
No contest.
NARRATOR:
The first of the Wild Bunch
to fall was Lonnie Logan,
who had exchanged
some of the stolen loot
at a bank in Montana.
He soon found his hideout
surrounded by Pinkerton agents.
When he tried to escape
out the backdoor,
he was promptly gunned down.
VERDOIA:
So all these forces are coming
together against the Wild Bunch:
centralized information,
undercover agents,
mobile strike forces.
The world of Butch and Sundance
is shrinking, shrinking,
shrinking more rapidly
than they can push back
against it.
They were being chased
by a system,
and this system was
very sophisticated.
And for the Pinkertons
to be able to capture Butch
and Sundance and advertise it
would have been a major,
major promotional feat for them.
They would have gained
client after client.
NARRATOR:
Nine months after
the Wilcox robbery,
Pinkerton detective
Frank Murray received word
that the stolen banknotes
were popping up
around Alma, New Mexico.
The money was now leading
the Pinkertons
right to the mastermind himself:
Butch Cassidy.
Hiding in plain sight,
Butch was working as a cowboy
at a local ranch.
But before Murray
could arrest him,
Butch was tipped off
and fled town,
just narrowly escaping capture.
HUTTON:
It's like a noose
getting tighter and tighter,
and Butch is smart enough
to understand this.
He's smart enough
to see that now,
all the Pinkertons' resources
are focused on the Wild Bunch
and they're never going
to give up.
They won't stop.
NARRATOR:
With the Pinkertons
hot on their heels,
Butch, Sundance and the core
of the Wild Bunch
secretly rendezvoused
in the roaring cattle town
of Fort Worth, Texas.
In its red light district
known as Hell's Half Acre,
thousands of cowboys flocked
to saloons and bordellos.
It was the perfect place
for the gang to disappear
and plan their next move.
Decked out like the business
moguls they had been robbing,
the Wild Bunch decided
to pose for a picture.
News Carver, Harvey Logan,
Ben the Tall Texan,
the Sundance Kid
and Butch Cassidy
looked nothing like
a band of desperados.
Pitched forward in his seat,
Sundance seemed tense and eager
while Butch sat back,
donning a puckish smile.
HUTTON:
I think perhaps for Butch,
it's almost a nostalgic
photograph.
I think he's done.
I think Butch understood
that the West had changed.
There was no way to fight
against the railroad,
against the bankers,
against the Pinkertons.
It was time to move on.
NARRATOR:
For Butch and Sundance,
Fort Worth was the end
of the trail.
No matter how superlative
their skills as outlaws,
it seemed to be
only a matter of time
before they were brought down.
Bounties for the Wild Bunch
were growing by the day,
and finding safe sanctuary
on the Outlaw Trail
was no longer a given.
VERDOIA:
Butch Cassidy is getting fed up
of a life on the run.
He doesn't have
any sense of home,
he has no sense of roots
and he has to live
one night to the next,
constantly looking out
for the Pinkertons
coming at him over his shoulder.
RUTTER:
The Wilcox robbery really
started to get him thinking
he had to get
out of the business.
It was only a matter of time
before he was either
going to be shot
or captured and put in prison.
NARRATOR:
As Butch and Sundance saw it,
there was only one option
if they wanted to remain
free and alive:
to flee the country.
KOLPAN:
Butch wants to go to a place
that's more like
the western United States was,
say, 20 years before,
where you don't have
the Pinkertons to worry about
and where law enforcement
isn't quite as effective.
BUCK:
In those days, Argentina
was the land of opportunity.
There was a lot of interaction
between the American West
and Argentina:
cattlemen going down there
to buy cattle,
there were settlers
going down there
HATCH:
The New West was closing in
on them,
so they wanted to go back
to the Old West,
and I think they saw
in Argentina the Old West.
NARRATOR:
Butch welcomed any member
of the gang to travel with them.
No one took him up on the offer.
But if further proof was needed
that things had become too hot
in the U.S.,
it wasn't long in coming.
Soon after the flash bulb fired
in that Fort Worth photo studio,
the Wild Bunch was once again
scattering for cover.
HUTTON:
The photographer put this
photograph in his window
as advertisement for his skill.
Unfortunately,
a local lawman goes by,
recognizes one of the boys
in the photo,
and soon that photo
is circulated
throughout the Pinkerton
detective agency
and throughout the West.
They made fliers with pictures
of Butch Cassidy,
the Sundance Kid,
all of the Wild Bunch.
They plastered
those pictures up everywhere,
and they had them in the hands
of all their operatives.
Now indeed you couldn't escape
the eye that never slept
because it really had you.
NARRATOR:
Two months had passed
since the Fort Worth photo
revealed their identities,
and Butch and Sundance
had managed to elude capture.
By February 1901,
they were making plans
to board a steamer
bound for Argentina.
With time to spare
before their ship set sail,
the two men,
posing as Wyoming cattle barons,
disappeared into the chaotic
metropolis of New York City.
VERDOIA:
The trip to New York
is a complete dichotomy.
Here they had spent years
ripping off mining companies,
ripping off the railroad,
ripping off banks,
and where do they choose
to flee?
They flee to the belly
of the beast.
They take anonymity
from New York City.
It's perfect Butch Cassidy.
How do you disappear?
Disappear among them.
NARRATOR:
While no other member
of the Wild Bunch
had heeded Butch and Sundance's
call to flee the West,
the famous outlaw duo
were traveling
with a third companion:
Sundance's girlfriend,
the mysterious Etta Place.
VERDOIA:
Virtually everything about
Etta Place is conjecture.
Was that her name?
Likely not.
Was she a schoolteacher?
Or was she a prostitute?
Nobody really knows.
One thing that seems certain
is that the Sundance Kid
apparently believes that
with Etta Place,
there's a reason to live.
There's a reason
to think of tomorrow.
There's a reason to flee.
NARRATOR:
Flush with their
ill-gotten gains,
Butch, Sundance and Etta
lived the high life
in a world unlike anything
they had ever known.
They could marvel
at monuments of modernity
like the Brooklyn Bridge.
Elevated trains rattled overhead
and electric lights
illuminated street corners
as they made their way
to New York's
famed restaurants
and playhouses.
Sundance and Etta,
posing as husband and wife,
even found time to visit
DeYoung's photo studio,
one of the finest in New York.
KOLPAN:
They were a very well-mannered
and soft-spoken couple,
and DeYoung probably thought
that they were cattle royalty
from the West.
They even go to Tiffany's,
and a pendant watch
is purchased for Etta.
They must have had themselves
a high old time.
NARRATOR:
On February 20, 1901, the trio
sailed out of New York Harbor.
As the Statue of Liberty
faded from view,
Butch and Sundance could look
back on a decade on the run
and see that their own freedom
was now within reach.
HUTTON:
It seemed like they had
a chance to start over,
to reinvent themselves.
The old days are over.
Butch and Sundance get out
just in time.
NARRATOR:
As Butch and Sundance
were making their exit,
the last remnants
of the Wild West
were finally being reined in.
After the Wilcox robbery,
trains began to employ
armed security
and the Union Pacific created
lightning-fast cars
stocked with armed man-hunters.
In just months,
the Wild Bunch members
who had decided to stay
in America
began to meet the end
their leaders had foreseen.
HATCH:
The Wild Bunch
was still in operation,
but they didn't have
their mastermind
to be able to plan
their robberies,
and they weren't going so well.
So these people went back
to their life of crime.
Harvey Logan was in on a robbery
in Colorado and was chased down
and ended up committing suicide
rather than be taken.
You had the Tall Texan,
he could have gone
to South American also.
Instead, he was beaten to death
with a mallet
on a train that
he was trying to rob.
So the Wild Bunch, one by one,
ran into the arms of the law
and were dealt with
either by death or by prison.
NARRATOR:
Two years after Butch
and Sundance
disappeared from the scene,
New York audiences
were being captivated
by Edwin Porter's film
The Great Train Robbery.
It was one of the first
motion pictures
to tell a complete story:
a Western inspired
by the daring exploits
of train robbers
like Butch and Sundance.
HUTTON:
By 1903, the story
of the Wild West,
the story of Butch and Sundance,
has already become fodder
for mass entertainment.
So famous is The Wild Bunch
that Buffalo Bill Cody
in his Wild West Show,
which is playing not only
all across America
but to the crown heads
of Europe,
features one of their
train robberies.
I mean, I think
to the American public,
Butch and Sundance are gone.
It's over.
That's why they're
making movies.
It's a show, it's a show now.
NARRATOR:
For the bankers and railroad men
who had been the locus
of their crime spree,
there was nothing romantic
about the Wild Bunch.
Even though Butch and Sundance
hadn't pulled off a job
in years,
they had not been forgotten.
Pinkerton agents continued
to work the case,
chasing down leads
across the country.
The all-seeing eye
was not about to let
the West's greatest living
outlaws simply vanish.
In the winter of 1903,
Pinkerton informants
in Pennsylvania
intercepted a letter
Sundance wrote to his family,
and just like that,
their cover was blown.
BUCK:
Butch and Sundance were
about as far away from Wyoming
as you could get
and yet, all it took was
one letter being opened,
and now they know
where they are:
Argentina.
NARRATOR:
Butch and Sundance had arrived
in Argentina two years earlier,
and together with Etta
they settled into the quiet
domestic life of ranchers
on a homestead in the remote
region of Patagonia.
They built a four-room ranch
house out of split cypress trees
and purchased
300 head of cattle,
1,300 sheep and 28 horses.
HUTTON:
All the evidence
is that they're reformed.
They're gonna go straight.
They made a lot of friends.
They seemed to be
respectable members
of the community down there.
There's even a wonderful
photograph taken of them
with their dog in front
of their ranch house.
Everything seemed to be
going well for them,
and then the Pinkertons
found them.
The Pinkertons began
to distribute flyers
with their pictures on it
in Argentina,
warning all the local
law enforcement officials
that these were notorious
American outlaws.
HATCH:
Word came down
to the local constable
and he was ordered
to arrest them.
Butch and Sundance knew
that their time was up
and they had to take off.
HUTTON:
The fact that you're
being hounded,
that they won't let you go,
sort of pushes them, I think,
back to the Outlaw Trail.
NARRATOR:
Etta Place, the woman who had
been a steady presence
in the lives of Butch
and Sundance
ever since they decided
to flee the country,
abruptly disappeared
from the scene.
HUTTON:
Etta simply vanishes.
We don't know when she leaves,
but she's gone from their lives.
And when she leaves,
their lives begin to spiral
out of control.
NARRATOR:
On the run from the Argentine
authorities and in need of cash,
Butch and Sundance returned
to what they knew best.
They slipped across the border
into Bolivia,
where they carefully cased
the country's banks and mines.
On November 4, 1908,
they robbed two payroll guards
from the Aramayo silver mine
and disappeared
into the unforgiving
Bolivian backcountry.
HUTTON:
It's unclear that they even
really know a good escape route,
and they're really heading
into the unknown.
This is a very different world
from Wyoming.
They don't have the support
of the local population.
They don't know all the trails.
They barely speak the language.
This is a dangerous game
they're playing.
NARRATOR:
Within hours of the heist, the
telegraph lines began humming.
Even in the wilds of Bolivia,
technology had caught up
with Butch and Sundance.
Every town in the area
was supplied
with descriptions
of the gringo bandits.
Military patrols fanned out
across the region,
combing every road,
ravine and ranch.
Butch and Sundance
made their way north
to the desolate mining town
of San Vicente.
There, they took shelter
in a house
while they planned
their next move.
HUTTON:
The news of the payroll robbery
has already reached the town,
and the mayor of the town goes
and informs the local military
that these two Americans,
strange Americans
are staying in town.
Well, the captain of the guard
sends an official back
to question these gringos.
HATCH:
He led three people
down to this home.
One of the soldiers
went onto the patio,
drew his weapon.
Butch saw his silhouette
through the window
and pulled out his six-gun
(gunshot)
and shot the guy dead.
The first person,
the only person,
Butch ever killed.
HUTTON:
Meanwhile, the word goes out
and other residents of the town
heavily armed
now come to surround the house.
BUCK:
They're surrounded,
they're not going anywhere.
There's no way
they're getting out of there.
(gunshots)
HUTTON:
A quick, violent
gun battle follows.
The bullets go right through
the adobe walls of the building.
(gunshots stop)
And then all is quiet.
It was morning
before they dared to go inside.
They carefully
made their way in,
and there were Butch
and Sundance, dead.
Sundance was laying
against a wall,
a bullet hole in his head.
Butch also had a bullet hole
in his head
and was laying on the floor
next to Sundance.
Butch killed Sundance.
It was a murder-suicide.
He shot Sundance in the forehead
and then turned the gun
on himself,
shot himself in the temple.
I think they realized
that this was the end,
and they were just
tired of running.
NARRATOR:
As Butch and Sundance
were laid to rest
in unmarked Bolivian graves,
American newspapers
were declaring an end
to the Wild West.
In a fitting epitaph,
The Washington Post declared
that the notorious gang
known as the Wild Bunch
had "disappeared with the march
of civilization."
But there were many
who simply could not believe
these famous western outlaws
had met their end.
HUTTON:
Almost immediately,
stories began that they
hadn't been killed in Bolivia.
We don't want the outlaws
to die.
We certainly
don't want them to die
the way Butch and Sundance died.
As wild as they were,
as bad as they were,
they still represented something
that Americans embrace:
that wild freedom.
And when they're gone,
the Wild West is gone.