ST. GEORGE, Utah — “Most of what follows is true.” That’s the opening of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” the 1969 movie about two bandits plying their trade as the sun was setting on the old Wild West.
Morally ambiguous, the movie struck a chord with Vietnam War-era audiences who stood and cheered when Paul Newman as Butch and Robert Redford as Sundance met a hail of bullets in a Bolivian town, etching the final frame onto my 15-year-old heart.
The movie wrote something else there, as well: a love of Western scenery, which I rediscovered on a March trip to southern Utah.
With five national parks, Utah’s grand scenery is unrivaled in North America. It’s also where Robert LeRoy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, was born in 1866.
On the Parker homestead in the Sevier River Valley 200 miles south of Salt Lake City, Cassidy learned to be a cowboy first and, later, how to put a brand on other peoples’ livestock.
Apparently, he pulled only one big job in Utah, the 1897 Pleasant Valley Coal Co. payroll robbery at Castle Gate. Between heists, he and his Wild Bunch gang often hid out on Utah’s Colorado Plateau.
I set out to track the historical and Hollywood outlaw in Utah but got only as far as St. George when I started running into a third persona: the apocryphal Cassidy, who is in some ways the most interesting because of the people who told me about him.
St. George is the capital of Utah’s Dixie, so named because Mormon church leaders dispatched pioneers like Cassidy’s father, Maximillian Parker, to settle and grow cotton around the time of the Civil War.
Downtown at the Washington County Library, I met Bart Anderson, a historian and folklorist, known as “Ranger Bart” because he has devoted his retirement years to giving slide shows at nearby national and state parks.
Of the 111-show repertoire, the one on Cassidy is the most popular.
It features vintage photos of the outlaw, including the mug shot taken when he was sent to the Wyoming Territorial Penitentiary for horse- stealing in 1894 and a portrait of the Wild Bunch dressed like city slickers. The Cassidy it portrays is an affable-looking man.
“Butch was a contagious fellow, well-liked,” Anderson said. “The movie got that much right.”
In pursuit of an outlaw
As so many locals claim, Cassidy didn’t die in South America on Nov. 6, 1908. Instead, he and Sundance rode back to Utah, stopping in Mexico to meet Pancho Villa.
Others have tried to prove the opposite. The movie takes a middle ground by leaving their fate to the imagination but faithfully underscoring the passing of the outlaw era.
Around 1860, Mormon pioneers settled in Grafton, just down the Virgin River from the red rocks of Zion Canyon National Park. But floods, disease and hostile Indians made the colony unsustainable. By 1910, many had moved on, leaving a ghost town to Hollywood location scouts who found backdrops for a passel of Westerns, including “The Deadwood Coach,” with Tom Mix (1924), “My Friend Flicka” (1943) and John Ford’s “Rio Grande” (1950).
I drove east through the red-and-white slick-rock country along Utah 9, then turned north on U.S. 89, which runs through the hamlet of Orderville.
I turned east again on Utah 12 and headed for Ruby’s Inn, on the threshold of Bryce Canyon, whittled from limestone into a gallery of pinnacles and spires known as “hoodoos.” Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, who gave his name to the landmark that is now a national park, once said, “It’s a helluva place to lose a horse.”
Locals say a posse tracked a teenage Cassidy here when he took up rustling.
Bryce Canyon Pines motel offers daylong trail rides to the remains of a stone cabin where Cassidy is thought to have stashed fresh horses for the relay escapes he perfected.
The next day, I drove west to the ranching town of Panguitch. Its block-long business district has Western storefronts occupied by cafes and shops, including Cowboy Collectibles, where I found reproductions of Wild Bunch “wanted” posters.
Panguitch is where Cassidy’s youngest sister, Lula Parker Betenson, spent her last years after writing “Butch Cassidy, My Brother,” published in 1975. The book confounded Western scholars with its assertion that Cassidy arrived at the Parker home in nearby Circleville in 1925 driving a new black Ford, unscathed by the bullets of federales who supposedly had killed him and Sundance.
Lula was a toddler when her big brother left home, but in the 1930s she believed claims that William T. Phillips of Spokane, Wash., was Cassidy. Later, she changed her mind, saying she knew where the real Cassidy was buried but planned to take the secret to her grave. She died in 1980.
Ranches, barns and pastures line the 20-mile stretch of U.S. 89 north of Panguitch. Just before Circleville, I spotted the lonesome old Parker homestead, now privately owned. The wood cabin has a loft where Cassidy might have slept as a boy.
I stopped at Butch Cassidy’s Hideout restaurant and motel in Circleville for Butch’s Special Cheeseburger, then visited 84-year-old Alfred Fullmer.
Fullmer remembered that he raced horses with some of the Parker boys. Like some locals, he believes Lula’s story about Cassidy’s 1925 homecoming, although he said no one talked much about the bandit before the movie.
“Afterward, everybody claimed they’d seen him. I don’t know, maybe I did,” Fullmer said.
The next morning, I headed east on Utah 12. It makes a 120-mile loop through the minuscule ranching communities of Tropic, Cannonville and Henrieville at the threshold of 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, then rounds the east side of 10,188-foot Powell Point.
Bill Wolverton, a resource management ranger for Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, which abuts Grand Staircase-Escalante, knows the region well.
On our way to the trail head to hike Upper Calf Creek Falls, we stopped at Head of the Rocks point, overlooking what seemed like the edge of the world. Wolverton pointed out the north face of the massive Kaiparowits Plateau, the snow-capped Henry Mountains to the northeast and the badlands around Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile-long buckle of earth with sculptured red-and-white rock marking Capitol Reef National Park.
Utah 12 crosses the wild Escalante River, and it was a short walk from the highway to Upper Calf Creek Falls. Wolverton and I sat looking into the canyon, remembering the scene in the film in which Butch and Sundance jump from just such an aerie.
After that, I took Utah 12 over 10,000-foot Boulder Mountain, unpaved until the 1970s, then spent the night at the Lodge at Red River Ranch on the Fremont River west of Torrey, a beautifully restored stagecoach inn that the owners claim Cassidy visited.
Wild Bunch’s fortress
The next morning in Capitol Reef park, I hiked up the side of Grand Wash to Cassidy Arch, a spot wild enough to have earned Butch’s name.
Then on to Hanksville, about 50 miles east of Capitol Reef, where I met Utah guidebook writer Mike Kelsey, who had promised to take me to Robbers Roost, a 30-mile-wide mesa banked on the south by the Dirty Devil River.
The Roost was the impregnable lair of the Wild Bunch. It had narrow slot canyons for hiding out, some springs, enough fodder for horses and overhangs where bandit sentries watched for posses. It can be reached only on unmarked dirt roads.
Around mid-morning, we pulled up at Robbers Roost Spring, in a deep-set gulch rimmed by red rock, with water palatable to cows and horses but too bitter for humans.
From there, we walked up the canyon to the remains of an old stone cabin built by early ranchers — and reportedly used by the Wild Bunch.
A shared hostility to railroad barons and bankers kept the outlaws on good terms with the tough cattlemen who worked this isolated range. Antipathy to outsiders persists among some of them, which is why Kelsey was concerned when we next headed for the Biddlecome-Ekker Ranch at nearby Crow Seep.
But I had permission to see the place from Gayemarie Ekker, one of the ranch owners. She lives now in Cedar City, Utah, but she grew up with her mother, Hazel, father, Arthur and older brother, A.C., on the 160-acre Robbers Roost ranch started by her grandfather, Joe Biddlecome, in 1909.
“Butch Cassidy was our Robin Hood,” Ekker told me.
Insider’s Guide
GET THERE: The area of south- central Utah where outlaw Butch Cassidy roamed is about 150 miles northeast of St. George and about 250 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.
From Denver International Airport (DEN) Delta, Frontier, United and US Airways offer one-stop service to St. George starting at $346 round-trip; the same airlines offer nonstop service to Salt Lake City starting at $108 round-trip.
STAY: Boulder Mountain Lodge, Utah 12, Boulder; 800-556-3446, boulder-utah.com. This handsome, contemporary wood lodge on Boulder Mountain has a hot tub overlooking a bird sanctuary and a stylish grill restaurant; doubles range from $72 to $162, depending on the season.
Bryce and Zion National Parks have historic lodges and cabins; Zion Lodge is open year-round; doubles start around $154; Bryce Canyon Lodge is open April 1 to Oct. 31 with doubles starting about $125; for information contact Xanterra, 888-297-2757, .
Butch Cassidy’s Hideout Motel & Cafe, 339 S. U.S. 89, Circleville; 435-577-2008, butchcassidyshide . The small, shipshape motel and cafe are popular with ATV riders headed for the Paiute Trail; doubles from $58.
Desert Pearl Inn, Utah 9, Springdale; 435-772-8888, desertpearl . The stylish and welcoming motel on the banks of the Virgin River’s north fork near Zion National Park has a laundry, swimming pool and gift shop with cafe; doubles start at $98.
Lodge at Red River Ranch, Utah 24, Teasdale; 800-205-6343, redriv . The lodge just west of Capitol Reef National Park was converted from an old stagecoach station. It has 15 elegant guest rooms full of Western antiques and boasts a hot tub, fly-fishing on the Fremont River and a charming restaurant; doubles from $160.
Ruby’s Inn, 1000 S. Utah 63, Bryce; 800-468-8660, . The inn, founded around 1920 at the entrance of Bryce Canyon National Park, is a Best Western hotel that is favored by families, thanks to recreational offerings including an indoor pool, national-park tours and horseback riding; doubles from about $70, depending on the season.
DINE: Balance Rock Eatery & Pub, 148 S. Main St., Helper; 435- 472-0403. A homey bar-restaurant with antiques for sale and pool tables; $10 to $15 per person.
Boulder Mesa Restaurant, Burr Trail, Boulder; 435-335-7447. Famous burgers and pie; $10 to $15.
Bryce Canyon Pines, Utah 12, Bryce; 800-892-7923. A motel with a friendly restaurant renowned for it blueberry banana cream pie; dinner for one about $20.
Oscar’s, 948 Zion Park Blvd., Springdale; 435-772-3232. Serves huge burgers and burritos; about $10 to $15.
Rim Rock Restaurant, 2523 E. Utah 24, Torrey; 888-447-4676. For steak, chicken and chops with a great view of Waterpocket Fold; $20 to $25 per person.
SHOP: Cowboy Collectibles, 57 N. Main St., Panguitch; 435-676-8060. A trove of Old West memorabilia, including cowboy bath towels for $25 a set.
Escalante Outfitters, 310 Main St., Escalante; 435-826-4266. Has a terrific collection of books, maps, outdoors apparel and gear.
Helper Antique Mall, 115 S. Main St., Helper; 435-472-8883. A grandma’s attic of old Utah collectibles.
M&S Turquoise, 53 E. St. George Blvd., St. George; 435-628-2514. Sells traditional Southwestern silver and turquoise jewelry at cut-rate prices.
MORE INFO: Utah Tourism; 800-200-1160, .
