Old West Female Outlaws

Lesson 3: The Wild Bunch Women

In this lesson we will discuss the women associated with Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang. These women include Etta Place, Laura Bullion, Annie Rogers, Rose Morgan, Maude Davis, and the Bassett Sisters.

The Wild Bunch Gang-A Brief History

The Wild Bunch, also called the Hole in the Wall Gang, stole cattle and horses, robbed banks and held up trains across the West. The gang was headed by Butch Cassidy, whose real name was Robert LeRoy Parker. This loosely-organized gang operated from 1886 to 1901, and consisted of around 100 different outlaws. Not all of them participated in each robbery. Because they had a code of honor which included not killing innocent bystanders and not stealing cattle in the place where they lived, they were often protected from the law and hidden by members of their community.

The gang had several hideouts. One of them was Hole in the Wall, in the southern Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. Another, Brown's Hole, was located in a secluded valley near the Wyoming, Colorado and Utah border. A third hideout which the gang often used in the winter was Robber's Roost, which was located in the southeastern Utah desert.

Besides Butch Cassidy, members of the gang who had a wife or sweetheart affiliated with The Wild Bunch included Harry Longabaugh , also known as the Sundance Kid, Ben Kilpatrick, also called the Tall Texan, Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry, Elza Lay and Matt Warner.

Among the women associated with the Wild Bunch were Etta Place, Laura Bullion, Anne Rogers, Rose Morgan and Maud Davis, and the Bassett Sisters. Many of the women had worked as prostitutes, and quite a few of them came from Fannie Porter's sporting house in Texas, which the gang liked to frequent. Some of the women such as Laura Bullion and Annie Rogers had criminal intent and helped the gang by fencing goods and money for them. Others, such as Maud Davis and Rose Morgan were not involved in crime but were affiliated with the gang only by being romantically involved with an outlaw member

The gang was brought down by vanity and modern technology when group members posed for a photo. The photography shop made a copy from the negative and displayed it in the window. One of the gang members was recognized by a Wells Fargo man. For the first time faces could be put to names. Soon flyers of the outlaws appeared everywhere, which eventually led to many arrests. After that, the gang scattered. The ringleader, Butch Cassidy along with the Sundance Kid and Etta Place continued their crimes in South America. It is believed that both Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died there after a battle with the law, but some entertain the theory that Cassidy escaped and returned to live secretly in the United States.

The purpose of this lesson will be to gain a better understanding of the women affiliated with the Wild Bunch Gang and how they came to be a part of one of the most notorious gangs in the west. We will also explore the consequences of their choices, which for some meant being constantly on the run from the law and for others imprisonment and sometimes reform. The main source for this lesson will be The Wild Bunch Women. Rutter,Michael. Twodot Publishing, Globe Piquet Press, Helena, MT. 2003

At the end of Lesson 3 test your knowlege with an optional, short multiple choice quiz over this lesson.