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When Harry Longabaugh
was a mere 17 years of age or so he got caught stealing
a horse, in and around his home town of Sundance, Wyoming.
Hell, Harry was so well liked around those parts; not only
was he not hanged, when he was released after 30 days in
jail Harry had a new moniker: The Sundance Kid.
The
Sundance Kid in Calgary
The
legendary member of the Wild Bunch, and Butch Cassidy's
lieutenant, spent the better part of 3 years in the Canadian
Old West, in and around Calgary, Alberta. 1891 Calgary Police
records show that a Harry Longabaugh was charged with cruelty
to animals, by a rival in the Blackie area. At this time
Harry was working as a wrangler at the Bar U Ranch (currently
a national historic site), about 50 miles south of Calgary.
After
spending more than a year as a cow hand, the Kid decided
it wasn't for him and with Frank Hamilton as a partner opened
a saloon in the Grand Central Hotel in Calgary, then part
of the Northwest Territories of Canada. (Today it is the
province of Alberta.)
Frank
Hamilton had a reputation as a bully, and in business he
was a man who liked to intimitate his partners or rivals
to get his way. He tried that with Harry and prompty had
a six-shooter shoved in his ribs, followed by a few choice
words. Sundance grew tired of Hamilton's act, and sold his
part of the business a time later and took to saddle and
pointed his horse south to the American border.
From
Calgary the Kid rode through Montana and on to Wyoming where
he hooked back up with Butch Cassidy and together with other
members of the Wild Bunch went busily about their outlaw
business.
Oddly
enough just a year or so after Sundance left Calgary the
Grand Central Hotel, and its saloon burned to the ground.
Coincidence? Perhaps. . .or perhaps the Kid never forgot
Hamilton's behaviour and snuck back to even the score.
Wild
Bunch Poster |
Sundance and Etta Poster | More
about Etta Place |
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