With the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid†becoming famous with the likes of acting legends Paul Newman and Robert Redford there are a lot of misconceptions that have arisen about the famous cowboy duo that are not all true. They became famous for robbing banks and trains in the “wild west†and were very good at what they did. They had help robbing from the famous “Wild Bunch†gang that included them and the likes of Harvey “Kid Curry†Logan and Ben “Tall Texan†Kilpatrick as well as up to one hundred others. With this famous gang they were able to become wealthy to some degree (2009).
In the movie it portrays Butch and Sundance being chased by Joe Lefors and many other people that were out to rid themselves of the infamous Butch and Sundance for robbing numerous banks and trains as portrayed in the movie. On one occasion the gang robbed a Nevada bank and made off with $32,000 (2009). In fact they were never chased by Lefors. At the famous hideout called “Hole in the Wall†the Wild Bunch was not even present at the time Lefors and his men were the creating the famous Hole in the Wall shootout. This was a common hideout for gangs because of its location near places to rob and a hard place to get to by officials at the same time.
The big myth about Butch and Sundance is whether or not they actually died in Bolivia. Supposedly Butch and Sundance were fatally shot by the Bolivian army and Butch was forced to put Sundance out of his misery before taking his own life. The reports by the Bolivian army stated that they indeed killed Butch and Sundance and asked for identification from the banks that were recently robbed by the Americans (2009). People later stated that they did not in fact kill the famous duo and it was two other men. People say they saw Butch and Sundance after the big gunfight. There is no way to actually tell whether or not they were actually killed in that gunfight. There is a lot of “he said she said” that goes along with this territory.
There is one man who claimed to have seen Butch Cassidy after Bolivia; his name was William Philips. In an interview reported by the Biography Channel he claimed to have seen a man with the same facial features as Butch in Washington D.C. While that is not a lot to base this off of he had a ring that belonged to Butch. He also carried Butch’s gun that had his brand carved into the butt of the handgun. That is not a lot to believe whether or not the famous Butch Cassidy survived the famous gun battle between Butch and Sundance, not to mention with a portion of the Bolivian army (which is amazing in itself). These two men were wanted so much that a country sent their army to kill them.
In the end, did they survive the gun fight with the Bolivian army? There are only two people that know that for sure and they are both dead by now. This is a hard thing to investigate due to the fact if they did actually survive they would not have been able to use their real names if they did indeed come back to the United States. They would in fact be other people to the rest of the world. So they either died themselves in Bolivia or died as different men in the United States living a life they did not all enjoy; being upstanding citizens.
Author: Jason Comeau
Bibliography
Golden, William. 1969. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 20th Century Fox.
Huntington Smith, Helena. 1961. The Truth about the Hole-in-the-Wall Fight. The Magazine
Of Western History, 11 (3), 11-19.
(No Author). Biography Channel: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
(No Author). 2009. Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. The Wild West.
