Successfully eluding the law became ever harder as the West grew more populated and law enforcement became better organized, however. When the railroads hired the Pinkerton Agency to chase down Cassidy, he and Harry Longabaugh, along with Etta Place (who was likely a Browns Park girl named Ann Bassett), went to South America and purchased a ranch in Argentina. After a few short years of trying to make it as honest ranchers, the pair again turned to easier methods of obtaining money. After robbing banks in several South American countries, the pair was finally trapped by troops in Bolivia.

What happened afterwards is the central myth surrounding Cassidy. Some claim he and Sundance were killed, others emphatically believe that another pair of outlaws were killed by the troops and that Cassidy and Longabaugh purposefully let it be known they had been killed. The oft-told stories relate that the pair returned to the West and lived out their lives under alias names and identities. Like many other Western figures, Butch Cassidy has become larger than life. His name still generates fond recollections from many Utah old-timers who love to tell stories about him. Whether he died in South America or died of old age under one of the several identities that are attributed to him may never be fully proven.

See: Lula Betenson, Butch Cassidy, My Brother (1975); Pearl Baker, The Wild Bunch At Robbers Roost (1971); Larry Pointer, In Search of Butch Cassidy (1977); and Doris K. Burton, Queen Ann Bassett Alias Etta Place (1992).

John D. Barton