Cayley Museum in Pictures and Stories

One of the world’s most famous outlaws, once portrayed by Robert Redford on the silver screen, has ties to a historic Cayley and Alberta ranches.

If you’ve ever visited the Bar U Ranch National Historic Site near Longview, you’ve tread the same ground as Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, also known as The Sundance Kid.

Longabaugh was born in Pennsylvania in 1867 and was the youngest of five children.

In 1882, at the age of 15, he travelled west in a covered wagon with his cousin to help settle his relative’s homestead near Cortez, Colorado.

It was there that Longabaugh worked as a wrangler at a nearby ranch and learned how to breed and buy horses.

It is believed that it was around this time that Longabaugh first met Robert LeRoy Parker, otherwise known as Butch Cassidy.

After leaving Cortez, Colorado in 1886, Longabaugh found brief work at the N Bar N ranch in Montana, but harsh conditions during the winter of 1886-1887 caused layoffs on the ranch, and Longabaugh was one of the unlucky ones who got the boot.

From there, Longabaugh made his way to Wyoming and got a job at the Powder River Cattle Company, known for the ’76’ cattle brand and often referred to as “The 76 Ranch.”

It was there where he met and worked with Cyril Everett Johnson, who was known as “The Virginian” and is believed to be the basis for the 1902 book of the same name.

In 1887, while in Wyoming, Longabaugh stole a horse, saddle, and a gun from a worker on a ranch in Crook County, which led to his arrest and subsequent 18-month stay in a jail in Sundance, Wyoming, and ultimately giving him his nickname, “The Sundance Kid.”

After his release from jail on February 8th, 1889, Longabaugh eventually made his way back to Colorado, where he lived with a distant cousin of his.

It was at that time that Longabaugh joined up with Robert LeRoy Parker (aka Butch Cassidy), Tom McCarty, and Matt Warner in holding up and robbing the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado on June 24th, 1889.

Longabaugh, needing a safe place to lay low after the robbery, ventured north into Canada and arrived just in time for the 1890 cattle season.

Once in Canada, he got work on the H2 ranch near Fort MacLeod where he broke horses for the McHugh brothers, who had a contract to supply beef to the Blackfoot reserve nearby.

From there, it is believed that he began breaking horses for the Calgary-Edmonton Railway Company Cayley stock yard near High River.