September 17, 2024 |
Photo – Robert Leroy Parker, aka Butch Cassidy – Courtesy wyohistory.org
The great-grandnephew of Butch Cassidy is coming to Rawlins next week for a book signing.
Robert Leroy Parker, better known as Butch Cassidy, is a legendary outlaw perhaps best known for the Wilcox train robbery. On June 2, 1899, Cassidy and his gang, the Wild Bunch, held up a Union Pacific Railroad train near Wilcox, Wyoming in Albany County where they blew open a safe with dynamite. The gang reportedly stole over $50,000. Cassidy eventually fled to south America where he and his partner, the Sundance Kid, are said to have been killed during a gunfight with the Bolivian army in 1908.
Bill Betenson is the great-grandson of Butch Cassidy’s younger sister, Lula Parker Betenson. The connection motivated Betenson to write two books about his famous relative: Butch Cassidy, My Uncle: A Family Portrait and Butch Cassidy: The Wyoming Years.
The author recounted a time when his great-grandmother received a special screening of the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The movie ends with Cassidy’s widely reported death at the hands of the Bolivian army. However, Betenson said his great-grandmother claimed that Cassidy returned to the United States and died in 1937.
In 1934, an author named William T. Phillips published a book about Cassidy. In the book, titled The Bandit Invincible, Phillips claims to have been close friends with Cassidy.
In his 1977 book, In Search of Butch Cassidy, author Larry Pointer made the claim that Phillips and Cassidy were the same person. Despite both men supposedly dying in the same year, Betenson said his great-grandmother refuted Pointer’s assumption.
Lula Parker Betenson wrote her own book about her brother in 1975, called Butch Cassidy, My Brother. Betenson said his great-grandmother enjoyed the fame the book brought and believes it contributed to her long life.
Believing that his great-grandmother’s book had resolved any debates about Cassidy, Betenson said he never intended to write about his famous relative. However, after decades of research, the author said he wanted to share his findings with his family members.
That book, titled Butch Cassidy, My Uncle: A Family Portrait, was published in 2012. Eight years later, in 2020, Betenson wrote about his great-granduncle’s time in the Cowboy State, titled Butch Cassidy: The Wyoming Years.
In conjunction with the Carbon County Museum, Betenson will hold a book signing event at the Carbon County Higher Education Center in Rawlins at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, September 24th.
