Frontier Legends | Butch Cassidy | 4

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0:17Imagine it's the afternoon of August 13th, 1896. You're a teller at a bank in Montpellier, Idaho. You've just finished helping a customer and now you're busy tidying up your counter. You hear the front door open and footsteps approaching. Hello and welcome to Idaho. As you look up, your voice falters. There's a broad-shouldered man with a bandana over his face, standing in front of your window. He waves a pistol at you as he shoves a canvas sack across the counter. This is a robbery. Put every dollar you have in this bag. You stand frozen, your mind racing. The robber slams his hand down on the counter.

0:53Move it! Panicking, you try to find an excuse not to hand over your customer's money. I'm afraid we're out of cash. You're a damn liar. Let me see if this helps you think straight. The robber rears back and slams the butt of his gun into the side of your head. You fall forward, your elbows hitting the counter. Your vision blurs and your ears ring. You hear voices arguing and briefly wonder if a sheriff has arrived to save you. But you know that can't be right. The closest sheriff is a hundred miles away. After a moment, your vision clears and your ears stop ringing. You look up and see a second masked bandit standing near the door.

1:30That's who you must have heard. The two men were arguing about something. Robber closest to you glares at his accomplice a moment, but then turns back to you. Just fill the bag or else. Okay, okay. You open your drawer and stuff the bills inside the bag, but your hands are shaking, and you drop some cash on the floor. The bandit pounds his gun on the counter. In the bag, not on the floor. He cocks his gun. I'm sorry, here, take my watch. You unchain the watch from your pocket, and the robber reaches his hand out to take it, but then hesitates. He looks back at the second robber by the door, who seems to be the one in charge, even though he's the smaller of the two.

2:08He gives a small but noticeable shake of his head, and the first robber pulls his hand back. Oh, keep it. We're not here for your money, just the banks. Now move! You spring back into action, shoving the remaining bills from your drawer into the sack as fast as you can. And when you've finished, you hand over the back of money. Satisfied, the two bandits run outside and jump on a pair of horses. You slumped to the floor, exhausted. As you try to catch your breath, you wonder what the robbers could have been arguing about. You had the distinct impression that the first robber wanted to kill you, but the second man talked him out of it.

2:42He's definitely the reason you still have your watch. So whoever those outlaws were, they seemed to have a very peculiar sense of right and wrong.

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4:42By the late 19th century, the American frontier was in a period of rapid transformation. For decades, the federal government has struggled to enforce the nation's laws in the remote territories of the West, giving rise to rowdy lawlessness, and the federal government has But by the 1890s, the railroad had made travel more accessible, and law enforcement was finally beginning to catch up. Still, one group of outlaws was determined to continue running amok. Dubbed the Wild Bunch by the press, they operated from Montana to Texas, rustling cattle, holding up banks, and robbing trains. Between jobs, they hid out among the natural rock formations of the rugged, isolated landscape.

5:20And the clever mastermind behind many of the Wild Bunch's schemes went by the name of Butch Cassidy. He had a magnetic personality, but under the surface he was a man genuinely torn between the outlaw life he lived and the legitimate life he seemed to want. Operating by a complex moral code entirely his own, he would ultimately achieve legendary status as an outlaw with a conscience. This is Episode 4 in our five-part series on Frontier Legends, Butch Cassidy.

5:53Robert Leroy Parker, later known as Butch Cassidy, was born on April 13, 1866, in a remote settlement in the southern part of the Utah Territory. He was the first of 13 children born to English immigrants Anne and Maximilian Parker. Anne and Maximilian's parents had joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in England, but they faced persecution, mostly stemming from their practice of polygamy. So in 1856, when Maximilian was 12 and Anne was 14, they and their families boarded ships bound for the United States. Their ultimate destination was the Utah Territory, where the Mormon leader Brigham Young had established a refuge for his followers.

6:32But life in the Utah Territory was harder than they expected. Summers were boiling hot and winters brutally cold. The land was difficult to farm, and Maximilian and Anne faced numerous setbacks. During one especially bad winter, their entire herd of cattle froze to death. Another year, fierce winds blew away all their newly planted seeds. Unable to support his family by farming, Maximilian was forced to look for additional work. He guided Mormon pioneers traveling to Utah, delivered mail, and worked construction. These jobs often took him away from home for long stretches of time, and in his absence, Anne also pitched in, taking work on other people's ranches milking cows and churning butter.

7:14As a result, their children were often left to fend for themselves, including their oldest, Robert Leroy, whom they called Roy. As a child, Roy watched as the persecution his family had fled in England followed them to Utah. Roy's grandfather, who had two wives, was frequently forced to hide from U.S. Marshals looking to arrest him for bigamy. In one instance, he was charged with mail fraud for stealing stamps, though he complained that the charges had been trumped up to punish him for having more than one wife. Little Roy was confused by what he saw as the senseless persecution of his grandfather, a harmless old man doing nothing wrong.

7:51So he came to distrust the law and soon developed his own sense of right and wrong. Then, when Roy was twelve, he traveled to town to buy a new pair of blue jeans. But by the time he arrived, the general store was closed. Not wanting to have to make the long trip again, he broke in, took the pants, and left a signed IOU on the counter. Roy believed that this was a reasonable solution, but the store's owner did not agree and made a complaint to the local sheriff. When the sheriff came out to the Parker home and demanded the money for the pants, Roy's father Maximilian confronted Roy about what he'd done.

8:26But Roy didn't understand the problem. He explained that he had left the signed IOU clearly demonstrating that he hadn't stolen in anything. He couldn't believe that the sheriff had wasted his time taking the storekeeper's complaint seriously. Worried about his son's cavalier attitude toward the law, Maximilian decided what Roy needed was a change of scenery. So the following year, when Maximilian took a job on a horse ranch 85 miles away, he took Roy with him. Roy was strong for his age and skilled both on horseback and with a branding iron. So even at 13, Roy was considered a valuable asset on the ranch.

9:01For the next several years, he continued to work as a ranch hand, mending fences, branding, and helping to drive cattle, further honing his skills. When he was 17, the ranch where Roy was working hired a new hand named Mike Cassidy. He was only about a year older than Roy, but he was far more worldly. Until recently, the area where Roy lived was populated almost entirely by Mormons who had strict rules against alcohol, extramarital sex, and other temptations. But after silver was discovered in Utah in the early 1880s, more and more outsiders like Mike Cassidy had begun moving there. And unlike the sober and reserved Mormon men Roy knew, Mike was a smooth talker who walked with a swagger and could hold his liquor.

9:42Mike and Roy quickly became close, and Roy looked up to him like a big brother. But what Roy didn't know was that as well as being an experienced ranch hand, Mike was also a skilled cattle rustler. Cattle theft was a huge problem throughout the West. Because large ranch owners dominated the business, it was nearly impossible for new arrivals to rise above the level of a ranch hand. With no path of upward mobility and poor pay, many resorted to making money in ethically dubious ways. But Mike rustled on a different scale than the typical ranch hand. In fact, not long after he arrived, Mike stole a whole herd of cows and enlisted Roy to help him drive them to a remote spot in the Henry Mountains about a hundred miles away.

10:25Many large ranch owners looked the other way when a few cows here and there went missing, considering it the price of doing business. But this time, Mike had rustled too many cows for the rancher to ignore. So Mike needed to get out of Utah and quickly. Roy wanted to go with him, but Mike insisted that they part ways, telling his friend he was too good to go on the run with him. But rustling cattle with Mike had given Roy a taste of a more exciting life, and he didn't want to stay in Utah, barely scrimping by like his parents. So in April 1884, just a few days before his 18th birthday, Roy said goodbye to his family and headed off in search of adventure.

11:03For the next several years, he traveled around the West, taking work at cattle ranches in Wyoming and Montana, while also rustling cattle. Three years later, in 1887, Roy arrived in Telluride, Colorado. Shortly after he got there, he met a man named Matt Warner in a bar. Warner owned a horse named Betty, who had the look of a worn-out nag, but in reality, she was fast. At the time, Colorado was known as a horse-racing hotspot. So Warner and Roy teamed up, taking advantage of Betty's unimpressive appearance to hustle gamblers out of money. They traveled around the state, racing local champion horses and taking bets.

11:41Over and over, other owners would assume their beautiful stallions could easily outrun Betty, but over and over, Betty crossed the finish line first. Warner and Roy raked in the winnings. Along the way, they were joined by a third man, a professional cattle rustler named Tom McCarty. But as word of Betty's prowess spread, it became harder to find people willing to bet against her. So McCarty came up with another idea for how to make money. On July 25, 1889, the trio walked into the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado, and robbed it. McCarty held up the teller at gunpoint, while Roy and Warner ran behind the counter and filled bags with all the money they could grab.

12:21Then they jumped on their horses and galloped out of town, hightailing it to an isolated part of southeastern Utah known as Robber's Roost. The large rock formations in this rugged canyon country of southern Utah made for an effective place to hide out. And when they finally counted the money they'd stolen from the bank, they'd discovered they'd made away with over$20 ,000. So even though they successfully hid out around Robber's Roost through the summer of 1889, In the fall, they spotted a four-man posse nearby and decided it was time to go their separate ways. Roy headed north to Wyoming, and by the time he arrived there in 1890, he was going by a new name, Butch Cassidy, a tribute to his former mentor, Mike Cassidy.

13:02Under this new alias, Cassidy used his share of the San Miguel Valley bank robbery to buy a horse ranch in central Wyoming. His goal was to breed horses, but soon horses from other ranches in the area mysteriously started going missing. After one owner got a tip that Cassidy was headed west with a herd of stolen horses, he arranged for a posse to go after him. The men caught up to Cassidy in Auburn, Wyoming, on the western border of the state. Cassidy was convicted of horse theft, and in 1894 he was sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary. But after serving 18 months, Cassidy applied for a pardon and was granted a hearing in front of the governor.

13:40There, he was prepared to make his case.

13:46Imagine it's January 1896 in a courtroom in Laramie, Wyoming. You're the governor of the state, and today you're hearing applicants for pardon. A shifty-looking cattle rustler with beady eyes stands in front of you. He swears he won't break the law again, but you don't believe him. Besides, you've recently been criticized for granting too many pardons, so today you're determined not to be too lenient. All right, well, I've heard your plea. Pardon denied. A clerk escorts the man out of the room before leading another prisoner in. You sit back in your chair as a stocky man with thick eyebrows and a dimpled chin makes his way to the front of the room.

14:21He gives you a courteous nod. Let's see here. Butch Cassidy? That's me. All right, Mr. Cassidy, tell me why you think you should be pardoned. Well, I've served three quarters of my time. I don't see how a few more months behind bars is going to make much of a difference when it comes to learning a lesson. And have you learned your lesson? I'd say so. And what will you do if I let you out early? Well, I have some property in Colorado that needs looking after. I'd go there. You study the man. You're not sure he's telling the truth about owning property in Colorado. But there is something in the way he carries himself that makes him seem different from the others.

14:56Well, you're young. You seem smart. If you go straight, follow the law, you could still make something of yourself. Will you give me your word that you'll quit stealing horses or anything else? Cassidy looks away for a second and fixes his eye on you. I'm afraid I can't do that. Excuse me? Well, who's to say what might happen in the future? I don't want to give you my word if I don't know for certain I can keep it. I can make you another promise, though. Yeah, what's that? If you pardon me, I swear I'll never break the law on the state of Wyoming ever again. You have to suppress a smile. You can't help it.

15:30You like this man. You want to give him a chance, and if he sticks to his word and stays out of Wyoming, then no one can say you didn't protect the citizens of your state. Well, if you break your promise, we'll lock you back up and just throw away the key. You understand that? I understand. All right. Pardon granted. You watch as the stocky young man saunters out of the courtroom a free man. You hope you find out what happens to him one day. You just have a feeling it's going to be something special.

16:03As soon as he was freed from the state penitentiary in Wyoming, Cassidy knew exactly where he was headed. He'd given his word not to commit another crime in Wyoming, and he intended to keep that promise, but there were plenty of other places to look for trouble. Because while he was in prison, Cassidy's appetite for money and adventure had only grown, and he'd had plenty of time to concoct ambitious new schemes that he hoped would earn him more money than the San Miguel Valley bank robbery. And now that he was free, he was ready to put his plans into action. But he knew that if he was going to succeed, he'd need help, and it couldn't come from just anyone.

16:37He'd need to put together a crew, one as brazen and fearless as he was, and he knew just where to find them.

17:07begin to starve. Oh yes, and they didn't bring a radio because real sailors don't use radios. Right? This is the story of Marilyn and Maurice Bailey. And the 117 days they spent lost at sea. Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and at free on Audible.

17:29I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford and we're the hosts of British Scandal. Yes indeed. In this series, a Derbyshire couple are bored of their curtain-twitching, lawn-mowing suburban life. So they sell their house, build a yacht and sail off around the world. Which sort of sounds idyllic until a sperm whale sinks their boat and they begin to starve. Oh yes, and they didn't bring a radio because real sailors don't use radios. Right? This is the story of Marilyn and Morris Bailey. And the 117 days they spent lost at sea. Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and at free on Audible.

18:16In July 1896, Butch Cassidy took a job at a ranch outside Montpellier, Idaho. But he wasn't alone. With him were two new associates, Elsie Lay and Bob Meeks. After he'd been released from the Wyoming State Penitentiary, Cassidy had headed for Brown's Hole, a notorious outlaw hideout in Utah, where he recruited Lay and Meeks. And now, with them on board, he was ready to put his latest plan into action. In their downtime from the ranch, Cassidy and the men would head into Montpellier, ostensibly to grab a drink at the general store. But really, they were there to case the town's bank. After careful observation, they learned when the bank was the least busy and worked out where to plant fresh horses along their escape route so they could stay ahead of anyone who came after them.

19:02Then they assigned roles for each of them to play during the robbery. When Cassidy was confident they had worked out all the details, they made their move. On August 13, 1896, Meeks stayed with the horses while Cassidy and Lay marched into the bank, wearing bandanas to conceal their faces and brandishing their guns. Lay confronted the teller while Cassidy stood by the door and kept the few customers inside calm and quiet. But when Lay hit the teller with the butt of his gun, Cassidy intervened and insisted that no bystanders be hurt during the theft. He had no interest in stealing from individuals, just the bank, and he worried that any real violence would give law enforcement one more reason to come after them.

19:44In the end, no one was seriously harmed, and the three bandits got away with over$16 ,000 in cash and coins. But Cassidy was just getting started. Several months later, he and Lay concocted a plan to rob the Pleasant Valley Coal Company in Castlegate, Utah. Like before, Cassidy and his accomplices got jobs at a nearby ranch and then spent months planning the heist. They obtained the fastest horses they could find and trained the animals not to spook at the sound of shouting and gunfire. And then they made sure to plan multiple escape routes in case one was blocked. Then, with everything prepared, around noon on April 21, 1897, a train car carrying the payroll for the coal company rolled into Castle Gate.

20:28As two workers carried the bags of cash from the train to the office, Cassidy and Lay confronted them with guns drawn. They grabbed almost$9 ,000 in cash and gold before riding out to their hideout at Brown's Hole near the Wyoming border. After this Castle Gate robbery, Cassidy and his companions knew the smart thing to do was to lay low for as long as possible. But after a few months, they became restless, so they decided to hit the town. They headed just over the state line into Wyoming, where they drank and danced and otherwise caused a ruckus. The men ended up spending so much money that no one in town really objected to their rowdy celebration, but their wild party had drawn attention, and not long after, mentions of Cassidy's gang started popping up in newspapers.

21:13By this time, Cassidy had amassed a network of associates who he pulled in on various jobs. But while some newspapers claimed there were 500 bandits working under him, the true number was likely closer to a dozen. These men were drawn to Cassidy's natural charisma and respected him for his cleverness and attention to detail. Each time he planned a job, he would pick and choose who he wanted. The newspapers and locals referred to the loosely organized group by a variety of names, including the Hole in the Wall Gang, after one of their hideouts, but the name that ultimately stuck was the Wild Bunch.

21:46One member of the Wild Bunch was Harry Longabaw. Born in 1867 outside Philadelphia, at the age of 14, Longabaw had left home and headed west. Like Cassidy, he'd been looking to escape a life of poverty and found work as a ranch hand. But ultimately, four years later, a brutal winter swept through the Great Plains, causing nearly all the cattle to freeze to death. As a result, the ranch Longabaw worked four shut down. So now, desperate and out of money, he stole a horse and a gun, but he was caught and convicted in Sundance, Wyoming to two years of hard labor. When he was released in 1887, rather than being reformed, Longabal had decided he preferred the outlaw life and adopted a new nickname, the Sundance Kid.

22:29Shortly before the Castlegate robbery, he fell in with Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch. For the next year, after every crime committed in the West, whether it was a bank robbery, cattle rustling, or train heist, reporters speculated that it was the work of Cassidy and his crew. Then in March 1898, two members of a posse chasing an escaped fugitive were shot and killed not far from where Cassidy and some members of the Wild Bunch were hiding out. Cassidy's crew was not involved in the shooting, but the event sparked public outrage nonetheless. After years of chaos in the West, the public was fed up with violence.