Legends of the Wild West: Butch and Sundance Part 5
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas where the temperatures are in the 60's and 70's with lots of sunshine. In fact yesterday it was 75 degrees! Lots of gunfire in the surrounding countryside when it gets this warm. Yesterday it sounded like war zone around here!
Well today I'm continuing with our story of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, two of America's most famous outlaws. I started with Butch's story and background, at this point in his life he's still known as Bob.
To recap:
Bob grew up as a devout Mormon on a farm/ranch outside Salt Lake Ciy, Utah with his parents and 12 brothers and sisters. Life was hard and he became an expert horseman but was bored with the farm and cowboy life.
We even have photos of his boyhood cabin which has somehow stood all these years. Here's a photo before it was restored:
source
And here's the place after restoration:
These photos are from the Utah State Historical Society. The state of Utah spent $350,000 restoring the homestead! Of course now it's a tourist trap off Highway 89 there in Circleville.
(by the way, can you imagine 15 people living in that cabin??)
Sorry about the side tracking, I just thought the restoration was interesting. But you can see that he was in a rural, isolated area.
He was restless and wanted to experience the world and after getting into some trouble with local authorities he knew he would be ostracized by the community so he rode off to Telluride, Colorado which was a crazy, untamed, mining town.
He totally absorbed the wild lifestyle of that Wild West town and fell in with two criminals and saw his first killing of a man. He was growing up fast but not the way his momma wanted.
Today's story
After the shooting of that Ute man, the boys.. Matt, Bob and Tom had a big wad of cash from their race winnings. So what do you do when you find yourself fairly wealthy? Do you save it up for your future or invest in some land or start a business?
No, of course not silly! You go on a rampage in town, you go on a spending binge. lol. They did exactly that. They blew all that money, thousands of dollars which was a fortune back then, on women, whiskey, nice clothes, the best restaurants, and gambling.
Broke again
After that they were broke, naturally, and had no way to make money. Poor babies. Everyone in the area knew not to race against their fast horse so the horse racing business was over for them, along with the big, easy money.
Bob and Matt decided to go back to being a ranchhand and hired on with a rancher by the name of Harry Adsit who had a big ranch with 5,000 head of cattle and a large herd of horses.
Harry was selling beef cattle to the miners and work horses to the mining companies. In other words, a very successful and smart businessman.
The workin life is too hard!
Well, the boys only worked there a few months before they got tired of it, it was dang hard work and they'd gotten spoiled with fast, easy money.. so they quit. Harry was so impressed with their horse and cowboy skills that he gave them both a newly broken in horse as a bonus. Mighty kind of him.
They told Harry they were going back home to Utah but instead they went up to Tom's cabin where Tom was still staying. The three of them plotted their next move. Since they'd gotten tired of hard work and low wages the only option was ...what?
They were forced into it
What do you think they came up with? lol. The innocent, gentle, kind, honest, virtuous boy in Bob was long gone.
They decided to take money from those other hard working, low wage earners by robbing a bank. That was the only logical choice!
They chose a bank in Telluride. (that's real smart. Think maybe someone might recognize them right there in their home town?) Here is a description of the event written up in the Rocky Mountain News on June 24th, 1889:
"The robbery of the San Miguel Valley Bank of Telluride on Monday by four daring cowboys(I think the paper got this wrong, I think it was just the three boys) is one of the boldest affairs of the kind ever known. (I guess whoever wrote this never heard of Jesse James or Cole Younger of the James/Younger gang)
The four rode over to the bank, leaving their horses in charge of one of the number, two remained on the sidewalk and the fourth entered the bank and presented a check to the clerk.
As the latter was bending over the desk examining the check his party grabbed him around the neck, pulling his face down on the desk, at the same time admonishing the suprised official to keep quiet on pain of instant death.
He then called to his partners on the sidewalk saying "Come on boys, it's all right." The boys came in and cleaned up all available cash to the amount of $20,750, while their comrade held the trembling clerk over the desk by the neck.
When their work was complete the clerk was released and fell in a heap to the floor. Surveying the quaking mass of humanity, the robber said he had a notion to shoot him anyway for being such a coward, then joining his comrades they mounted their horses and rode leisurely away.
When they had ridden a couple of blocks they spurred their horses into a gallop, gave a yell, discharged their revolvers and dashed away."
The paper's description is accurate except the number of men. Matt took care of the teller while Bob went into the unlocked vault and came back out with what Matt described as "bales of greenbacks and a lotta gold."
By the way, $20,750 back then was equivalent to about $600,000 in todays money! But back then the boys were making $30 or $40 a month as cowboys so you can see what a bloody fortune that was.
On the road outside town guess who they ran into? None other than their former boss Harry Adsit. But instead of acting cool and chatting for a little while and making up some story, they flew past him at a gallop.
He identified them and that set the law on their trail for years. Matt described it this way.." Right at that point we broke with our half-outlaw past and become REAL outlaws, burned our bridges behind us, and had no way to live except by robbing and stealing."
Bob and the boys were now riding hell-bent-for-leather towards Utah and Robbers Roost with an armed and angry Sheriff's posse on their tail.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
PS- ya know..you might just be a redneck if:
The family business needs a lookout!
Okay, I'm back and hoping to keep up better now. Dude, you have SUCH a gift of storytelling!!! I love your little asides with your own thoughts as you tell a story, too. I do that all the time when I'm reading aloud :)
Great post, as always.
haha! thank you so much Byn! No one ever says anything about the writing so I have no idea, sometimes they comment about the joke but that's about it. lol. So that makes me feel better. I assume that foreigners don't get much of the little side humor things or the sarcasm.
thanks so much, you must feel better now? I'll go over to your blog but I'm recharging my vote so it'll be a couple of days before I can vote, man that's painful! lol. thanks again!
I think your writing just seems so effortless and relatable that most people probably don't even notice how awesome it is. I know that sounds backasswards, but it's true that unless you ARE a writer, I don't think you really notice the talent/skill behind other people's writing.
Kind of like I sometimes have a hard time understanding the skill that goes into things that I'm not good at or things that I don't have a lot of experience with.
You're awesome (and don't worry about the voting! Your comments are worth more to me, anyway!)
thank you again so much Byn and I'm glad you're back and writing again!
Hi, @janton!
You just got a 9.73% upvote from SteemPlus!
To get higher upvotes, earn more SteemPlus Points (SPP). On your Steemit wallet, check your SPP balance and click on "How to earn SPP?" to find out all the ways to earn.
If you're not using SteemPlus yet, please check our last posts in here to see the many ways in which SteemPlus can improve your Steem experience on Steemit and Busy.
howdy there steem-plus! thank you for the upvote and for your outstanding platform!
Your weather sounds lovely Cowboy. We got a little more snow here today lol. As for imagining 15 people living in that cabin .. Yikes I can so see that getting wicked ugly wicked fast haha
Posted using Partiko Android
haha! howdy reikigirl! a little more snow today on top of the 6 feet that you already have? lol. your back has to be awesomely strong girl! I was shocked when I saw how small that cabin was after reading about them raising 13 kids there! dang..I think for sure they had to have a loft area! I'm so glad we're spoiled and living in modern times...although if you read yesterday about how wild Telluride was I think you'd fit right in! lol.. you could go total Beast on them!
You are having great weather, Cowboy. As for Bob, Mama would be mighty disappointed in her boy.
Nice how the log cabin is restored. It is surprising for us to see how small the living space was in olden days. With no TV or computer, they usually just needed a kitchen with table, wooden chairs & stove..maybe pantry and the rest was used for bedrooms.
Looks like log cabin has an upstairs but not much standing space with the A shape and no dormer.
As a child, I had seen an unfinished upstairs separated with blankets to divide the bedrooms.
howdy redheadpei! I was just amazed at that size but someone from Asia said that size was typical in his country for that many people. We're just spoiled I guess. And I want to stay that way because I like my space! lol. they had to have used the upper part as a loft to sleep I would think.
The first step to life as an outlaw. I guess there is no return from this life after this.
Howdy sir Vincent! Well that's the way those boys saw it but I disagree. They could have gone to a different part of the country and changed their names and possibly their appearances and no one would have known back then. Without internet or surveilance cameras it would have been fairly easy to disappear. But noooo! they wanted the big, easy money. They got addicted to that.
Young, wild and reckless! They thought they can get away with everything - like how you felt when you were young. :-)
haha! Howdy sir Vincent! I think you meant like how YOU felt when you were young! Come to think of it, I was a little bit like that but so were you right?
Without the internet and decent record keeping, all it would take is a new look and a new name in a new town to reinvent oneself and evade capture. Of course, if you're blowing your cash on girls and booze, that doesn't work so well.
Howdy this evening sir fotosdenada! yes sir, it was super easy to disappear. I would have just gone to another part of the country. and invest the money instead of blowing it!
That sure is a lot of people to pack into a tiny cabin! I'm sure you're right, they must have had a loft. When you told about the bank robbery and the amount of money they got - and what that's worth in today's money I was amazed. I keep wondering how things might have turned out if they just split up the cash instead of blowing it all in one wild fling! You want to live that type of free-spending lifestyle, I guess robbing banks is the only way to afford it!
Keep the story going, I'm enjoying it! resteemed :)
thank you sir Keith! the money was astounding and they could practically have retired on it if they'd been smart. But I understand young and crazy. lol. Plus I'd go to another part of the country, change my name and start over.
Nice photos janton! Howdy, friend. I am missing a lot of your bank robbery/outlaw stories. Hope you’re doing well. Take care and wow 70 degrees..? Hmmm still cold here.
Posted using Partiko iOS
Being an outlaw seems like a lucrative business lol! Ever wished you were one? :D
I can imagine that many people living there. Here in our country it is normal to see a home filled with people. We want to be close with our family and especially financially challenged people.
💖🙏💖
Posted using Partiko Android
Howdy again leeart! I'm sure I would never want to be an outlaw but to hear how easy it was to rob and bank and disappear into the country it would have crossed my mind! lol. The banks always left the vault door open because no one robbed banks back then.
Oh so in your country, is it the Philippines? It is normal for that big of a family to live in that space? Wow. if one person got sick everyone would get sick. I'm thinking they had to have a loft with beds up there.
Where the heck all that people sleep in that tiny cabin?!
haha! That's what I was wondering blacklux, holy moly that doesn't look big enough. They had to have had a loft and had beds up there, that's the only way I see it as being possible!