I Never Met A Man That Didn't Like Cassidy... But, Then, I Don't Know All The Bankers

Robert Leroy Parker was born on April 13, 1866, as the eldest of 13 children to Mormon parents in Beaver, Utah.

This song is available on:


More related:

At the age of 13 his parents moved to a ranch located near Circleville, Utah, and hired a young man named Michael Cassidy as a ranchhand. Michael Cassidy would turn out to be bad influence on young Robert, teaching him how to shoot, rope and rustle cattle.

Robert would soon commit his first criminal offense of stealing a horse, but would soon move up the food chain to cattle rustling and bank and train robberies. During this time Robert Parker assumed the name of Butch Cassidy, "Butch" as he had previously worked as a butcher, and "Cassidy" as a sort of tribute to his outlaw mentor.

In 1900, he joined forces with Harry Alonzo Longabaugh and other outlaws such as Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan and Ben "Tall Texan" Kilpatrick. Collectively, they became known as "The Wild Bunch."

It was Longabaugh, however, with whom he would form a lasting and legendary relationship. Longabaugh, also a horse theif, spent 18 months in prison in Sundance, Wyoming. It was during his stay that he acquired the nickname of "The Sundance Kid."

After robbing the First National Bank at Winnemucca, Nevada, in 1901, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid fled to South America along with Sundance's girlfriend, Etta Place. They bought a 12,000 acre ranch in Bolivia and acquired 300 head of cattle, 1,500 sheep and 28 horses and assumed the names of James Ryan and Mr. and Mrs. Harry Place.

Among the locals, the trio is remembered as law-abiding citizens. Cassidy, in a letter to a friend, described the Cholila Valley as an ideal home.

The ideal life, however, was not long lived. Starting in 1905, they would return to a life of crime which would supposedly cost Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid their lives.

It is believed that Cassidy never shot and killed anyone and was perceived as a "Gentleman Outlaw." The Sundance Kid, however, was considered to have a talent for killing with the first shot.

In 1909, after a botched attempt at robbing a mine payroll, Sundance was mortally wounded by the Bolivian army and Cassidy took his own life.

Or so the story goes.

In Bolivia it is believed that Butch Cassidy escaped from the encounter with the Bolivian army and returned to Circleville, Utah, changing his name and dying in 1929.

Other stories contend that Cassidy escaped and returned to the United States as William Thadeus Phillips and died in 1937 Spokane, Washington.

It is generally believed that Etta Place returned to the United States, but did Sundance return as well to marry Etta Place under another assumed name and interred in a cemetary in Casper, Wyoming, in 1957?

Hollywood found the legend intriguing enough to produce the movie, "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid" (1969), starring Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy)and Robert Redford (The Sundance Kid).

>> Read more! <<

Some Will Rob You With A Six-Gun, Some With A Fountain Pen

Charles Arthur Floyd was born to a poor, farming family which turned to bootlegging to keep the family fed.

This song is available on:


More related:

At age 18, Charles was ready to work but there was none available. Eventually he bought a gun and committed his first robbery. He held up a post office in 1922 for $350 in pennies (about 242 pounds in those days, 195 pounds using today's mostly zinc pennies).

Shortly thereafter, he robbed a St. Louis Kroger store for $16,000, but was arrested because he arroused suspicion for all the fancy new clothes and the new Ford that he bought with the take.

He served 3 years of a 5 year sentence in the Jefferson City Penitentiary and vowed never to be locked up again.

When he got out he visited his parent's farm, only to find that his father had been shot and killed in a family feud with J. Mills, who was acquitted. Floyd took a rifle and went into the hills. J. Mills was never seen again.

While spending time in "Tom's Town," which would become Kansas City, he was given the nickname "Pretty Boy" by Beulah Baird Ash, a madam in a brothel. He hated the pseudonym, however, it stuck and made him into a colorful criminal.

Over the next 12 years he would embark on a crime spree in Oklahoma, robbing 30 banks and killing 10 men and causing bank insurance rates to double in the process.

In 1933, an attempt to free Frank "Gentleman" Nash as he was being returned to the Leavenworth Penitentiary resulted in the death of 5 men, including an FBI agent and Nash, became known as the "Kansas City Massacre." Floyd was implicated as a mass murderer, though he maintained to his death that he was not involved.

After the death of John Dillinger in 1934, Pretty Boy Floyd was named as Public Enemy Number One and a $23,000 reward was placed on his head, dead or alive.

Despite his notoriety as a criminal, Pretty Boy Floyd remained a folk hero to the people of Oklahoma. To them he was "The People's Bandit" and a "Sagebrush Robin Hood" because he would steal from the rich banks and help the poor by buying them groceries and tearing up mortgages during robberies.

He would also enter banks, brazenly in broad daylight, well groomed, immaculately dressed and never wearing a mask, and be courteous to his victims.

Pretty Boy Floyd was shot and killed in Ohio by Chester Smith, a local patrolman on October 22, 1934. Smith wisely suspected that Floyd, if encountered, would chose to run rather than to risk a gunfight. Smith, accordingly, carried a rifle on that day and took Floyd down in two shots.

>> Read more! <<

Poor Boy You're Bound To Die

Tom Dula was a handsome young man and a fine fiddler by all accounts. What is it, then, that would cause him to kill young Laura Foster?

This song is available on:


More related:

In 1866, Laura Foster's body was found in a shallow grave. She had been stabbed in the heart.

Tom had gone off to fight as a confederate in the Civil War and when he returned his courtship with Foster began. However, before he went off to war, he had been involved with Annie Melton.

However, the "Eternal triangle" mentioned in the song actually had a fourth side.

Sheriff Grayson, the man who would arrest Tom Dula as well as drive the horses from beneath him when he was hanged in 1868, had a crush on Annie Melton, and would later marry her.

While Tom Dula paid the ultimate price for the murder, Annie Melton was also tried for the murder and acquitted.

Thus the killer was apprehended and justly executed, or so it would seem until near the end of Annie Melton's life.

Legend contends that while Annie Melton lay on her death bed, she admitted to her husband, Sheriff Grayson, and other women in the town, that she was the one who had killed Laura Foster out of jealousy and convinced Tom Dula to bury the body.

This would at least make Tom Dula an accomplice to the murder and he may not have hanged. He never said a word to implicate Melton in his trials, and she allowed him to hang without saying a word on his behalf.

"Tom Dula" was first sung by Frank Proffitt to Frank Warner who recorded it for Elektra records and was reproduced by Alan Lomax in 1947. In 1958, the song was recorded by The Kingston Trio and it topped the charts and is accepted as the one song which started the folk music boom of the late 50s and early 60s.

"The Legendary" Eddy Arnold recorded this version in 1959. Arnold, known as the "Ambassador of Country Music" and "The Tennessee Plowboy," has sold over 85 million records in his 55 year career.

>> Read more! <<

Way Out In New Mexico, Long, Long Ago

Born in New York City as Henry McCarty, Billy The Kid moved to New Mexico with his family as the climate was better suited for his mother's tuberculosis.

This song is available on:


More related:

Billy's mother died in 1874, within a few years of arriving in New Mexico. Billy was but 13 years old.

Now on his own, Billy was forced to fend for himself, washing dishes and busing tables all the while continuing to attend school where he was said to have been a good student, artistic and an excellent reader as well as polite and well-mannered.

Billy’s legendary life of crime had the humblest of beginnings. In part of his struggle to make a living in his young teens, he stole several pounds of butter, which he sold to a local merchant. He was caught, but the town's sheriff let the him off with a warning.

His next offense involved hiding a bag of stolen laundry for a local, petty theif called "Sombrero Jack."

This time the judge decided to make an example out of Billy and decided to try him as an adult, though he was barely 15. However, the sheriff protested and instead held Billy in jail for a couple of days to give him a good scare.

Billy was too restless for any sort of confinement, and being small, was able to climb up a fireplace chimney and escape.

Now a fugitive, Billy spent the next few years working odd jobs, learning how to gamble and stealing horses.

It was during this time that he encountered Frank "Windy" Cahill. Cahill found enjoyment in harassing and bullying Billy and would eventually earn the distinction as the first man to be killed by Billy The Kid.

From here Billy would join gangs of bandits using the alias "William H. Bonney," but was commonly known as "Kid."

In 1877, Billy went to work for a rancher, John Tunstall, after Billy stole some of his horses and Tunstall agreed not to press charges if Billy would come to work for him. Tunstall was brutally killed by an opposing party in a property dispute, which has become known as the "Lincoln County War."

Though he continued to lead a life of crime, on many instances Billy attempted to rectify his situation and go straight. However, he was repeatedly double-crossed in his attempts to do so.

When Pat Garret, a former buffalo hunter, was elected sheriff of Lincoln County, he turned his focus to bringing in Billy The Kid.

Garrett did capture Billy and transported him back to Las Vegas and even kept him from being lynched.

Again, Billy managed to escape.

On July 14, 1881, Sheriff Pat Garrett caught up with Billy The Kid in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where Billy was killed in a final gunfight. He was 21.

>> Read more! <<

He'd Never Rob A Mother Or A Child

Designated as the "Last Rebel Of The Civil War," Jesse James, and his brother Frank, achieved legenday status for daring bank and train robberies.

This song is available on:


More related:

The brothers are accredited with pulling off the first daytime bank robbery during peace time, where they made off with $60,000 from a Liberty, Missouri, bank.

Though the James Gang held communities throughout the heartland in fear, Jesse James has also been likened to a modern day Robin Hood. James is described as a good father and family man, and religious in his own way. While he did steal from the rich, it is questionable whether he actually gave to the poor, or just kept it all for himself.

James' life of crime, spanning 15 years, earned him high price on his head. The $10,000 reward proved to be too tempting for brothers Robert and Charles Ford. James had recruited the Ford brothers for a plot to rob the Platte City Bank.

Robert Ford shot Jesse James, who was at the time living under the alias "Thomas Howard" in St. Joseph, Missouri, in the back of the head on April 3, 1882, while James stood on a chair to straighten a picture. He was 34.

When the Ford brothers attempted to collect the reward they were arrested, charged with murder and sentenced to hang, but were pardoned by Governor Tom Crittenden.

Charles committed suicide two years later and Robert, the "Dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard," was killed in Creede, Colorado, in 1892, by former members of the James Gang.

>> Read more! <<