Famous Wild Bunch outlaw who once owned a ranch in southern Alberta – OkotoksOnline.com

One of the world’s most famous outlaws, played on the big screen by Robert Redford, has ties to a historic Alberta ranch.

If you’ve ever visited the Bar U Ranch National Historic Site in Longview, you’ve walked on 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 traveled west in a covered wagon with his cousin to help settle his relative’s property near Cortez, Colorado.

It was there that Longabaugh worked as a cowboy on a nearby ranch and learned to raise and buy horses.

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

After leaving Cortez, Colorado in 1886, Longabaugh briefly found work on the N Bar N Ranch in Montana, but harsh conditions during the winter of 1886–87 led to layoffs at the ranch, and Longabaugh was one of the unfortunate ones who was laid off.

From there, Longabaugh headed to Wyoming and took a job with the Powder River Cattle Company, known for the ’76’ cattle brand and often referred to as “The 76 Ranch.”

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

In 1887, while in Wyoming, Longabaugh stole a horse, saddle, and gun from a ranch hand in Crook County, leading to his arrest and subsequent 18-month stay in a jail in Sundance, Wyoming, and eventually giving him his nickname, “The Sundance Boy.”

After his release from prison on February 8, 1889, Longabaugh eventually returned to Colorado, where he lived with a distant cousin of his.

It was at this time that Longabaugh joined with Robert LeRoy Parker (also known as Butch Cassidy), Tom McCarty, and Matt Warner to rob and hold up the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado, on June 24, 1889.

Longabaugh, needing a safe place to hide after the robbery, ventured north toward Canada, arriving just in time for the 1890 cattle season.

Once in Canada, he found work at the H2 Ranch near Fort MacLeod, where he broke horses for the McHugh brothers, who had a contract to supply beef to the nearby Blackfoot reservation.

It is believed that from there he began breaking horses for the Calgary-Edmonton Railway Company, near High River.

After that, he approached his old friend Cyril Everett Johnson, who was in the Cochrane area at the time.

Johnson had arrived in the area while Longabaugh was still behind bars in Wyoming and was the foreman of the North West Cattle Company in 1899.

Founded in 1882, it was one of the largest cattle ranches in the country. Because of the shape of the brand they used, a bar with the letter U underneath, the company became known as Bar U Ranch.

At that time, Bar University had more than 10,000 heads of cattle and more than 800 horses.

According to an 1891 Dominion census, the Bar U Ranch was enumerated on April 6, 1891, and a ‘Henry Longabaugh (sic), age 25, birthplace U.S.A., occupation horse breaker’ was reported working there.

Adam Buchholz, a student interpreter at Bar U Ranch, says Longabaugh worked there as a ranch hand.

“He would have been helping with herding, branding cattle and sorting meat for market,” Bucholz explains. “And he would also have been helping break the ranch’s horses, which involves training those horses that haven’t been ridden much yet.”

Bucholz says he also helped build some of the ranch’s buildings.

During his tenure at the Bar, Longabaugh not only proved himself worthy of his work, but he also proved himself well-liked.

There are reports from cowboys who worked with him who were deeply impressed with him.

In fact, The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime recalls one occasion when Longabaugh saved the life of a fellow cowboy.

As the story goes, Longabaugh and Fred Ings of Midway Ranch were tasked with moving cattle one fall night when a snowstorm blew in from the north.

By this time, Longabaugh had earned a reputation for fearing neither man nor devil, and even in the blinding snow of the storm, he led the pack to their destination.

Ings stayed to help keep the pack together.

But in the process of keeping stragglers with the herd, a position known as “dragging,” Ings was having trouble staying on his horse in the blizzard.

Noticing that Ing was no longer riding with the herd, Longabaugh headed back into the storm to search for him.

Longabaugh eventually found the other rancher and brought him back to camp, and is credited with saving the man’s life.

Another rancher, known as Bert Sheppard, is also said to have had a high opinion of Longabaugh.

In the Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime, Sheppard is quoted as describing Longabaugh as “a good horseman, roper and all-rounder.”

This happened even though most people were fully aware of his previous troubles with the law in the United States.

But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have run-ins with police north of the border.

According to various sources, including those from Bar U Ranch and the Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime, Longabaugh was arrested by the North-West Mounted Police (the precursor to the RCMP) for “cruelty to animals” on August 7, 1891.

After hiring a lawyer, the charges were dropped later that day by Superintendent JH McIllree and Inspector AR Cuthbert, with no known explanation as to why the matter was so abruptly dismissed.

In addition to the charges being dropped, Longabaugh remained at Bar U, indicating that the ranch owners did not believe the allegations were true.

This run-in with police is believed to have been over a fellow cowboy from Bar U whom Longabaugh disliked.

As the story goes, cowboy Herbert Millar claimed that Longabaugh had a small hacksaw hidden between his saddle and the horse’s blanket underneath.

Both men are believed to have known the tool could come in handy if Longabaugh ever ended up in prison.

Through it all, Longabaugh and Cyril Everett Johnson remained friends and co-workers, and on November 18, 1891, Longabaugh served as best man at Johnson’s wedding in High River and signed as a witness.

Sometime after Johnson’s wedding, Herb Millar, the cowboy who claimed to have seen a hacksaw under Longabaugh’s saddle, became the foreman of the Bar U, which did not bode well for Longabaugh.

After that, Longabaugh went into business with Frank Hamilton and co-owned the Grand Central Hotel lounge on 9th Ave SE in Calgary.

Unfortunately, Hamilton was known to not pay his partners, which irritated Longabaugh and led to an altercation between the two.

It was reported that after Longabaugh planted a gun on Johnson, Johnson paid Longabaugh, but they were no longer partners.

According to Sandra Codd, director of tourism experience at Bar U Ranch, after his failed business venture, Longabaugh found himself back at Bar U.

“He worked as a horse trainer for a while and then he went south, and that’s when he became the Sundance Kid. When he was here, we were just Harry Longabaugh.”

Once back in the United States, he and two others allegedly robbed the Great Northern train No. 23 in Montana on November 29, 1892.

The other two train robbers, Bill Madden and Harry Bass, were eventually identified as two of the train robbers and were arrested.

During the investigation, both Madden and Bass identified Longabaugh as the third train robber, but he was able to elude authorities.

From there, Longabaugh eventually joined Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch, and the rest is history.

To learn more about Bar U Ranch and its legendary history, click here.