48 ChaPter^1
help support his family, and worked under the supervision of small-time cow-
boy named Mike Cassidy, who was known as a talented horseman, a skilled
gunman, and a clever cattle thief. Cassidy showed Parker that large livestock
owners never noticed a few missing cattle here and there. In this way Mike
acquired his cows and horses. Parker took to this lifestyle; he admired
Cassidy’s freedom from the law and religion. Unlike Parker’s father who fol-
lowed rules and lived honestly, but remained poor, Cassidy lived outside the
law and outside of the exploitation of Capitalism. Young Robert Parker
wanted a similar adventurous life.
At the age of 18, Parker headed to Telluride, Colorado. Telluride had
become a booming gold town full of rugged frontiersmen, gamblers, prosti-
tutes, guns, and booze—just the adventure he sought. However, Parker
quickly learned that even in Telluride he could not escape the laborious
monotony of industrialization. Working the mines, Parker hauled gold and
silver down mountainsides and deeply resented risking his life in the mines so
that others could get rich. Longing for change, Parker eyed the local bank
and knew that, in a successful boomtown, it had to be full of banknotes. Bank
robberies were not uncommon during the time, but most hold-ups were
unsuccessful because the thieves were oftentimes drunk and unable to plan a
good escape. Parker, on the other hand, was smart and sober. Just after noon
on June 24th, 1889, Parker with his friends Matt Warner and Tom McCarty
pulled off a beautiful bank robbery at the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride.
They were quiet and quick as they entered the bank, never fired a gun, and
rode out of town immediately. Parker’s key to a quick escape relied on alli-
ances with locals across the West. As Parker fled from the bank, he had
friends, who resented the mine owners and bankers as much as he did, meet
him at planned points along his exit route and provide him with food, water,
and fresh horses that kept him well ahead of the lawmen that chased after
him. After his skillful bank heist, Parker knew his mother would be horribly
disappointed. He therefore changed his name to Butch Cassidy, in honor of
his cowboy mentor back in Colorado.
Cassidy’s partner in crime, Harry Longabaugh, who would become the
Sundance Kid, grew up in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. A child of the indus-
trial East, Longabaugh knew first hand the effects of industrial capitalism. The
shy young man walked twenty-five miles each day to work along the canals
for little money. Some days he worked up to twenty hours. He dreamed of