Butch and Sundance: The Boys Go Back To Honest Workin?
Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas! We are in a series about two of America's most famous outlaws, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Yesterday we talked about the women of the Wild Bunch and what the attraction was for women to throw in with cold-blooded killers and thieves. Today we get back to the boys. In 1898 Butch, Sundance and Elzy left their women in Utah and rode to New Mexico where they hired on as regular ranch hands.
My opinion of this move is that they were actually just providing a cover for their criminal activities or else they would have taken the women with them. They hired on as cowboys with a large ranch and started working. Well, of course the owner was super impressed with their skill and knowledge and especially with Butch and his natural leadership abilities.
The train robberies start
It wasn't long before the rancher made Butch his foreman. It also wasn't long before train robberies started happening. Mysterious ain't it? In the first robbery since arriving in New Mexico, two men jumped on board a train as it was moving out of the station at 1:30am.
They boarded at the back of the tender car and made their way up to the engine compartment, holding up the engineer and fireman with their six shooters. The robbers told the engineer to stop at the mile marker ahead. Another member of the gang was waiting there with the get away horses.
The engineer stopped the train at the mile marker and the robbers took them back to the express car which held the safe. The rear brakeman got suspicious when the train stopped for no reason so he jumped off the car and ran back to town to send a telegraph to the nearest Sheriff which was ten miles away.
Dynamite's a powerful motivator
When the robbers got to the express car, the messenger or guard inside, refused to open the locked door. One of the robbers threw a lit stick of dynamite off to the rear of the train and after that warning blast the engineer told the messenger to open the door, which he did.
The outlaws then put a second stick of dynamite on top of the safe, lit the fuse and everyone ran for cover. The roof of the car blew off and the inside of the car destroyed but the safe was open. The outlaws grabbed $26,000 in cash and jewelry, jumped off the car and swung into the saddles of their waiting horses.
And check this out..here's what the car looked like after they got through with it, those Pinkerton boys were not amused!
Oh, they also took the time to stop, thank, and shake the hands of the railroad employees before they left the car! lol. Plus, they were wearing bags on their boots so they wouldn't leave any boot prints.
The perfect job
The Sheriff in the next town was headed there by way of another train but by the time he got there the boys were long gone. A posse went out but had no chance of catching them.
You KNOW this had to be a Butch Cassidy planned job. The members pulling this off were Sundance, Harvey Logan and George "Flatnose" Currie. Butch was going about his everyday duties as ranch foreman.
In this photo taken around this time are some of the Wild Bunch members. Standing in back is "News" Carver and Harvey Logan, Harvey is on the right and was in on the train robbery. In front from left to right is Sundance, the Tall Texan Ben Kilpatrick and Butch Cassidy.
$26,000 back then was the equivalent to almost $800,000 today! Not bad for ten minutes of work. An interesting note about this photo...it turned out to be one of the few but one of the biggest mistakes Butch ever made, was having this photo taken. The guys were in Fort Worth because News was getting married to Lillie Davis who was a working girl at Fannie Porter's cat house.
Since they were all fancied up in their best clothes for the wedding Butch thought it would be good to have a photo taken. The owner of the shop was so pleased with it that he displayed it in his window. Well, someone in law enforcement walked by one day shortly after and recognized Harvey Logan.
Not brilliant
He went into the shop and ordered 300 copies and those were distributed to sheriffs, detectives and of course the Pinkertons all over the country. As soon as the rest of the group were identified they had their first accurate photos of most of the core of the gang and what they currently looked like.
This photo would be used for years in identifying these members and was spread to every law office in the nation. It was a rare mistake to have it taken but a huge one because now everyone in law enforcement knew exactly what they looked like.
In the next post the boys pull off another spectacular train robbery but the Pinkertons start swarming.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck
PS- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:
None of your shirts cover your stomach!
You're alive?! :O
Howdy blacklux! ah ha! you missed me didn't you? lol..our internet service went out for a couple of days so I decided since I was already hopelessly behind I'd spend most of my time working outside on our property, I need to get some things done before Spring. So I'm part time for a couple more days. Hit and miss on steemit.
how you doin? I suppose you're still running all over the island becoming a stick figure with actifit?
You miss steemit... I know... Cause you basically live here 24/7
hahaha! that's too funny blacklux. I do know people who live online and on steemit but I'm sure not one of them. It IS addictive though, how much time are you on each day, between driving and running?
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So glad your internet is working again! You have been missed by lots of people! They really did a number on that train car-I guess dynamite is effective at opening safes! That is a great picture of them all. Too bad it was not a good idea to have it taken.
yes it was indeed a perfect picture of them all, too perfect! Thanks for the kind words Melinda! Wait till you see the next train car. lol. How has your day and night been? Are you cruising along, efficiently completely all tasks and keeping up or had Netflix been calling you? lol... Did you say you always have a big Super Bowl party?
We always had Super Bowl parties when Jim was alive, but the older everyone gets the harder it is to do late Sunday night events, especially when everyone has to travel a distance to get back home and has to work the next day. And since the Packers are not playing in the Super Bowl it really doesn't matter!
I feel like I've got a lot accomplished today, but probably have not made very many comments. I haven't had the TV on at all today. It really is great to have you back again!
It's so good to be talking to you again Melinda! are you going to knock out a bunch of comments tonight? Sure would be cool to see you on the top spot of the League this week!
Yeah, the superbowl thing is not doable for many people. Actually there has been talk of going ahead and making it a national holliday and have the next day, Monday off so people don't have to worry about getting in to work the next day, have you heard that? I'm in favor of that idea. We need another holiday and vacation day! lol.
A football holiday! That would make many people happy. Better than Columbus Day, I must say! I am rooting for brittandjosie this week. She wants to be first so badly. I am simply not willing to work that hard! I could never do what you do! I'm perfectly happy to be in the top 10...or even the top 20!
Jj is working hard this week, too.
Oh well that sounds great. Yeah I think she does want it very badly doesn' t she? I don't know if it's good for anyone to work that hard. I really have my doubts unless we see some big signs of improvement in the marketplace and steem keeps rising. I guess it's still going up slowly, I haven't checked for days. lol.
Everything has been going down again. It's a bit depressing, but I keep reminding myself that this is the perfect time to build SP. And that is what we are doing!
yes that is an excellent strategy as long as the price eventually goes up and everyone thinks it should so I think that's very smart. Next year at this time we may be building a very healthy retirement account!
Every criminal makes mistake sometimes, lol. Nevertheless, this was a perfect job and I am sure they did many more. Butch really has a gift of planing robberies and his pals are good at executing them. They are the perfect bunch, until they get caught, lol. Anyway, let's see what's next!!!
Howdy Miss Lena! yes that's what I don't understand about bank robbers..they always get caught, sooner or later but I guess after awhile they think they don't have a choice and money helps them live life on their terms to a point. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
Always a pleasure Janton, you know how much I enjoy your writing style!
The problem with people in general is that they think that money will makes them happy and bank robbers takes it to an extreme. It's just an addiction like any other!
Exactly Miss Lena, you nailed it precisely!
I am glad you agree Janton 😊
well Miss Lena, you're so full of wisdom that it's hard NOT to agree! lol. Your daughter and grandkids are lucky, I hope they listen and learn from you.
Nice to hear you are connected again.
Your fans have missed you.
lol. both of em? lol. thank you sir Vincent!
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In a perverse sort of way I'm glad to hear that your innerwebs were broken because I thought maybe I had seen something shiny and got distracted for a couple of days. Glad to know I didn't miss a post...
I'm sure it was just coincidence that the boys moved to New Mexico and robberies started happening shortly after. I mean lots of people moved to New Mexico, right?
Turns out that photo was the biggest mistake the boys made, but every time I see it I'm really glad they did. What a striking photo.
Turns out that photo could have been used to identify the boys bodies down to Bolivia but there wasn't a copy available. The only way to ID them was a Gringo that worked as head of security at a mine that coincidentally got their payroll stolen after the boys showed up. There are just a wealth of coincidences that follow Butch and Sundance around, aren't there?
hahaha! just a bunch of coincidences! You got that right. Well, they were also good for other gangs and robbers because they could make it look like them and the Wild Bunch would get blamed so I think that's one reason for some of the coincidences.
Thanks so much for the excellent comment sir bigtom!
Morning janton, were you having a rest from writing for a couple of days? I can understand why.
These boys are really big time successful robbers now! Really enjoyed your writing today - thank you.
Howdy angiemitchell! Well, no...our internet service was out for the better part of two days so I got way behind, it came back up last night but I didn't want to post at night so I just waited until today.
What kind of internet service do you guys have down there?
We live in the country and it's very difficult to find any companyies that cover our area. We get our signal from a tower a couple miles away and it is a line of sight type of thing, we have a big tall ugly receiving disk on top of our house. At least for now. The good news is that it's cheap. The bad news is that it required a big tall ugly pole and dish on our roof! lol.
Hi janton, we have National Broadband Service known as NBN here at the Coast, it was connected last year and would you believe the 2 /work boxes are outside in front of each of our neighbour's houses. Internet is mostly trustworrthy and if it goes down and it did once we ring our NBN provider. it came on in a couple of hours but a technician still arrived at our place the next day. The fault was in the box outside.
Living in the country has its downside but I presume there are plenty of plusses too.
Howdy today angiemitchell! thanks for the fine explanation about your internet service. How much does it cost there? We'd been paying almost $70 for lousy, slow service but now we have better service and cheaper at $30 per month.
Yeah, if I wasn't on steemit the internet service wouldn't matter that much, being in the country far outweighs the inconveniences.
Again....bravo on the pictures you have in this post, they really help to tell the story!
Howdy sir simms50! thank you, I agree on the great photos, usually their ain't much in the way of photos of outlaws, they kinda avoided cameras! Sorry I've been absent all week, internet service was out for two days so I decided to get work done outside for most of this week.