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Original glass negative of Butch Cassidy’s mug shot taken at the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie in 1894, the first and only time he was arrested. The negative, 3.25˝ x 4.25˝, depicts Cassidy relatively clean-shaven, wearing a dark coat over a light-colored button-up shirt, his hair slightly flattened, likely from wearing a hat. Includes a portion of the original envelope, with the “Remarks” field annotated in ink, “Cassiday, Butch.” In fine condition.
Research suggests that this is one of two known images taken of Butch Cassidy before he posed for the Wild Bunch portrait taken six years later in Fort Worth, Texas; the other documented photo is an early studio portrait of Parker as a young man in a full-length pose, exhibited as part of the J. Willard Marriott Digital Library at the University of Utah. This glass negative was most likely provided to the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which had been hired to apprehend Cassidy, one of the Old West’s most famous and colorful outlaws.
In 1894, Robert LeRoy Parker (1866-1908), better known as Butch Cassidy, was arrested in Lander, Wyoming, for horse theft and possibly for operating a protection racket among local ranchers. He was imprisoned in the Wyoming State Prison in Laramie, where he served eighteen months of a two-year sentence before being released and pardoned in January 1896 by Governor William Alford Richards—apparently after promising never to commit another crime in Wyoming.
Following his release, Cassidy assembled the group of outlaws known as the Wild Bunch, which terrorized the region where Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado meet. The gang ranged from Hole-in-the-Wall to Robbers Roost along what became known as the Outlaw Trail. Around 1896–1897, he recruited Harry Alonzo Longabaugh—better known as the Sundance Kid—and outlaw history was made.
From a Utah private collection.
The Western Americana auction of Jochen Zeitz.
