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 Police records
show that a Harry Longabaugh was charged with cruelty to
animals. This was at the time he 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 bar in the Grand Central Hotel in Calgary, then part of
the Northwest Territories of Canada. (Today it's the province
of Alberta.)
Frank
Hamilton had a reputation as an under handed business man
who liked to bully and intimitate his partners to get his
way. He tried that with Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid)
and prompty had a six-shooter shoved in his ribs. Sundance
took his share of the saloon and left for south of the border.
From
Calgary the Kid headed south through Montana and on to Wyoming
where he met 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 all it's contents burned down. Coincidence?
Perhaps. . .or perhaps the Kid never forgot Hamilton's behaviour
and snuck back to even the score.
More
about the Canadian Old West
Wild
Bunch Poster |
Sundance and Etta Poster | More
about Etta Place |
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