A long standing pop quiz question among Utah historians asks, "Who is perhaps Utah's most famous and simultaneously least favorite native son?" The common answer is Robert LeRoy Parker, more commonly known as Butch Cassidy, a man renowned for his wits and cowboy skills, yet scorned for his life-long passion for robbing banks and railroad cars, and then outfoxing the law. Butch was born in Circleville, Utah, April 13, 1866, the son of a miner and homesteader, and the oldest of ten children. Acquaintances with less-than-savory ranch hands and minor brushes with the law probably helped convince young Parker that a more adventurous world awaited him outside of Circle Valley, and he left home for Telluride, Colorado to find work in the mines. Soon after his arrival in Telluride, he joined forces with another infamous Utah native, Matt Warner, and together they staged their first major bank robbery there in 1889. Butch would spend the remainder of his life staying a step ahead of the law and a day's ride away from the next robbery. Butch shared an Utah address in Robber's Roost with many other bandits and highwaymen in the course of his life, and often returned to visit family and friends in the nearest towns to the west, including Escalante, Panguitch and Tropic. Little is known of his time spent in Utah after his life of crime began, but oral histories abound from those who met and shared moments with him. Even less is known about Butch Cassidy's fate. Some believe he did die in a gun battle in South America with Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid," but most historians agree that Butch did return to live out his life in the United States. Matt Warner's daughter Joyce wrote that she met Butch after her father died in Price, Utah, in 1938. It is only fitting that one of the most elusive and mysterious men in Utah and American history continues to thrive as a legend to this day. |
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