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Saturday, September 11, 2010

Hole in the Wall Gang -- and Kerrville

The Hole in the Wall Gang, 
Front Row: 
Harry A. Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid),
Ben Kilpatrick,
 Robert Leroy Parker (Butch Cassidy);
Back row: Will (News) Carver, 
Harvey Logan (Kid Curry)
The Hole in the Wall Gang was a notorious group, and was made even more infamous when Paul Newman and Robert Redford appeared in the 1969 film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
The famous portrait of the group was taken in Fort Worth, after they had "robbed a bank in Winnemuoka, Nevada, in which robbery they secured $32,000 in gold coin."  With that cash they got new, fancy clothes and had their portrait taken.
Until today, though, I had no idea that at least part of the gang passed through Kerrville in 1901, and within 3 weeks after the above photograph was taken.
According to an article by J. Marvin Hunter in the September 1928 issue of the Frontier Times magazine, four days after this photo was delivered, a detective saw the portrait and recognized Will Carver, who was raised in Bandera, and was "badly wanted."
The detective wired for help, and when he and another finally headed out on the gang's trail, they were about eight to ten days behind the outlaws.
According to Hunter, the two detectives "traced the gang to San Antonio, where the band separated, two or three of them coming to Bandera and stayed all night and one day at a ranch near Bandera.  They went on to Kerrville and from there to Concho County, to a ranch between Eden and Paint Rock...."
The author, J. Marvin Hunter knew one of the outlaws, Ben Kilpatrick, from the time he was a little boy, and again after the outlaw was released from prison and Hunter was publishing a paper in Ozona.

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1 comment:

  1. I remember Marvin Hunter from the early days of Herring Printing!

    ReplyDelete

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