Harry Longabaugh
(The Sundance Kid) |
Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid) and Etta Place, just before they headed to South America.
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| Born |
1867 (1867) |
| Died |
1908 (1909) |
Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (1867 - November 6 1908?), sometimes spelled Longbaugh, born in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania, also known as The Sundance Kid, was an outlaw and member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, in the American Old West.
Notoriety, riding with Butch Cassidy
In 1887, Harry Longabaugh was convicted of horse theft and sentenced to 18 months in the Sundance, Wyoming, jail. Because of this jail time he was called the Sundance Kid. Longabaugh likely met Butch Cassidy (real name Robert Leroy Parker) sometime after Parker was released from prison around 1896. They formed the "Wild Bunch Gang." Together with the other members of the gang, they performed the longest string of successful train and bank robberies in American and Old West history. Little is known of Longabaugh's exploits prior to his riding with Parker. However, this is known: in 1891 Harry Longabaugh was a 25 year old ranch hand working at the Bar U Ranch in Alberta, Canada.[1] The Bar U was one of the largest commercial ranches of the time.
Although Longabaugh was reportedly fast with a gun and often referred to as a "gunfighter", he is not known to have killed anyone prior to a later shootout in Bolivia, where he and Parker were alleged to have been killed. He became better known than another outlaw member of the gang dubbed "Kid", Kid Curry (real name Harvey Logan), who killed numerous men while with the gang. It is possible that often the "Sundance Kid" was mistaken for "Kid Curry", since many articles referred to "the Kid". Longabaugh did participate in a shootout with lawmen who trailed a gang led by George Curry to the Hole-in-the-Wall hideout in Wyoming and was thought to have wounded two lawmen in that shootout. With that exception, though, his verified involvement in shootouts is unknown.
Longabaugh and Logan used a log cabin at what is now Old Trail Town in Cody, Wyoming, as a hide-out before they robbed a bank in Red Lodge, Montana. Parker, Longabaugh and other desperados met at another cabin brought to Old Trail Town from the Hole-in-the-Wall country in north central Wyoming. That cabin was built in 1883 by Alexander Ghent.[2]
Historically, the gang was for a time best known for their lack of violence during the course of their robberies, relying heavily on intimidation and negotiation, but nevertheless if captured they would have faced hanging. However, that portrayal of the gang is less than accurate and mostly a result of Hollywood portrayals depicting them as usually "non-violent". In reality, several people were killed by members of the gang, including five law enforcement officers killed by Logan alone. "Wanted dead or alive" posters were posted throughout the country, with as much as a $30,000 reward for information leading to their capture or death.[3]
They began hiding out at the Hole In The Wall, located near Kaycee, Wyoming. From there they could strike and retreat, with little fear of capture, since it was situated on high ground with a view in all directions of the surrounding territory. Pinkerton detectives led by Charlie Siringo, however, hounded the gang for a couple of years.[3]
Parker and Longabaugh, evidently wanting to allow things to calm down a bit and looking for fresher robbing grounds, left the United States on February 20, 1901. Longabaugh sailed with his "wife" Etta Place and Parker aboard the British ship Herminius for Buenos Aires in Argentina.[3]
Longabaugh's death
The facts concerning Longabaugh's death are not known for certain. On November 3, 1908, near San Vicente in southern Bolivia, a courier for the Aramayo Franke y Cia Silver Mine was conveying his company's payroll by mule when he was robbed by two American bandits. The bandits were subsequently traced to a lodging house in San Vicente where they had been staying. The building was subsequently surrounded by a small group comprising the local town mayor and some of his officials, and two soldiers. In the gunfight which followed, the two bandits were certainly killed, although it remains a matter of conjecture as to whether the two were in fact Longabaugh and Parker.
This uncertainty has, perhaps inevitably, led to many claims that one or both eventually returned to the United States and there lived on.
One of these claims, for example, was that Longabaugh lived under the name of William Henry Long in the small town of Duchesne, Utah. Long died in 1936 and was buried in the town cemetery. His remains were exhumed in December 2008, and testing is being done to determine whether he was Harry Longabaugh.[4]
However, until the San Vicente bodies are finally rediscovered (they were buried together in an unmarked grave in the local San Vicente cemetery) and forensically examined, these claims may remain a matter for dispute.
Aliases
- The Sundance Kid
- Frank Smith[5]
- H.A. Brown[5]
- Harry A. Place (his mother's maiden name was Annie Place)
- Harry Long
Popular culture
- Portrayed by Robert Redford in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Redford named the Sundance Film Festival after the Sundance Kid.
- A character in the 1951 film The Texas Rangers. The fictional tale has him and real-life outlaws Sam Bass, John Wesley Hardin, Butch Cassidy and Dave Rudabaugh forming a gang, then squaring off against two convicts recruited by John B. Jones to bring them to justice.
- Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth, Texas was named after him. [1]
- William Katt portrayed the Sundance Kid and Tom Berenger played Butch in Butch and Sundance: The Early Days.
- Swedish rock band Kent released a song titled "Sundance Kid" on their album Vapen & Ammunition
- Canadian Sam Roberts released a song called "Sundance" on his album Love at the End of the World
- In The Simpsons halloween special, Treehouse of Horror XIII, the Sundance Kid along with Billy The Kid, Frank James, his brother Jesse James, and Kaiser Wilhelm are the "hole-in-the-ground gang." When asked by Comic Book Guy what happened to Butch Cassidy, he replies that they "ain't joined at the hip."
References
- ^ Parks Canada - Bar U Ranch National Historic Site of Canada - Natural Wonders & Cultural Treasures
- ^ Cody Wyoming: Old West Trail Town, History
- ^ a b c Carbon County Outlaws: Butch Cassidy
- ^ Is Sundance really buried in Duchesne?
- ^ a b Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
External links
