Robert Leroy Parker
| Butch Cassidy | |
|---|---|
Fort Worth, Texas, 1900
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| Born |
Robert Leroy Parker April 13, 1866 Beaver, Utah Territory, United States |
| Died | November 7, 1908 (aged 42) San Vicente, Bolivia |
| Cause of death | Gunshot |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Butch Cassidy, Mike Cassidy, George Cassidy, Jim Lowe, Santiago Maxwell |
| Occupation | Farm hand, cowboy, thief, bank robber, train robber, gang leader, outlaw |
| Criminal charge | Horse theft, cattle rustling, bank and train robbery |
| Criminal penalty | Served 18 months of 2-year sentence; released January 1896 |
| Parent(s) |
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| Allegiance | Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch |
| Conviction(s) | Imprisoned in the state prison in Laramie, Wyoming for horse theft |
| Partner(s) | Harry Longabaugh a.k.a. the "Sundance Kid", Elzy Lay, Matt Warner |
Robert Leroy Parker (April 13, 1866 – November 7, 1908), better known as Butch Cassidy, was a notorious American train robber and bank robber, and the leader of a gang of criminal outlaws known as the "Wild Bunch" in the American Old West.
After participating in criminal activity in the United States for more than a decade at the end of the 19th century, the pressures of being pursued by law enforcement, notably by the Pinkerton detective agency, forced Parker to flee the country with an accomplice, Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, known as the "Sundance Kid", and Longabaugh's girlfriend Etta Place. The trio traveled first to Argentina and then to Bolivia, where Parker and Longabaugh were supposedly killed in a shootout with Bolivian police in November 1908; the exact circumstances of their fate continue to be disputed.
Parker's life and death have been extensively dramatized in film, television, and literature, and he remains one of the most well-known icons of the "Wild West" mythos in modern times.
Robert Leroy Parker was born on April 13, 1866, in Beaver, Utah, the first of 13 children of British immigrants Maximillian Parker and Ann Campbell Gillies. The Parker and Gillies families had converted to the Mormon faith while still living in England and Scotland. Maximillian Parker was 12 years old when his family arrived in Salt Lake City in 1856 as Mormon pioneers; Ann Gillies was born and lived in Tyneside, in northeast England, before emigrating to America with her family in 1859 at the age of 14. The couple was married in July 1865.
Robert grew up on his parents' ranch near Circleville, Utah, approximately 215 miles (346 km) south of Salt Lake City. He left home during his early teens. While working at a dairy farm, he formed a close relationship with his mentor, a cowboy and cattle rustler who called himself Mike Cassidy (an alias for John Tolliver "J. T." McClammy). Parker subsequently worked at several ranches, in addition to a brief stint as a butcher in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where he acquired the nickname "Butch", to which he soon appended the surname Cassidy in honor of his old friend.
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Wikipedia