Outlaws & Crime

Notorious outlaw Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch frequently crossed and hid out in Wyoming when on the run from the law. Cassidy’s 18-month incarceration at the Wyoming State Prison in Laramie, 1894-1896, is a definite fact. Other than that, stories place him and his gang all over the map, from Sundance to Brown’s Hole, and Powder Wash near Baggs to Hole in the Wall near Kaycee. Stories persist as well that Cassidy returned to Wyoming decades after his reported death in Bolivia in 1908, but no hard evidence has yet turned up.

Bill Carlisle robbed passengers on the Union Pacific Railroad three times in 1916 and once more in 1919, after escaping from the state penitentiary in a box of shirts. In 1936 he was paroled and opened a café and tourist court in Laramie, and later wrote a book about his remarkable life.