Home > Myths and Legends of the World > Butch Cassidy

Robert LeRoy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, was an outlaw of the American West whose daring exploits made him a legend. Cassidy led the Wild Bunch, the most successful and well-organized gang in the West. Even his death has the qualities of a legend, for no one knows for certain when or how he died.

Born in Beaver, Utah, in 1866, Parker learned to shoot and steal cattle from a worker on his family's ranch. He borrowed the last name Cassidy from this man, and he added Butch later while working in a Wyoming butcher shop. Cassidy started out as a cowboy and rustler stealing horses and cattle. By 1889 he was robbing banks and trains. He soon joined other outlaws to form the Wild Bunch. From remote hideouts such as Hole-in-the-Wall in Wyoming, Robbers' Roost in Utah, and Brown's Hole in Colorado, the gang raided trains and banks across the West.

Cassidy was in jail in Wyoming from 1894 until 1896. A few...