“Big” Steve Long was a gunfighter who was elected deputy marshal of Laramie during its early lawless days at a time when even the newly elected mayor and other government officials resigned within six weeks of each other in 1868.

Long was a violent man who intimidated, robbed and killed many honest men. He and two other lawless men – Ace Moyer and Con Wagner, owners of the Belle of the West Saloon– forced several ranchers to sign over the deeds to their ranches. Many who protested ended up dead, but with no witnesses to the crime.

Finally, N.K. Boswell, a local rancher and later the first sheriff of Albany County (1869), organized several other ranchers to conspire against the three. Their determination resulted in the hangings of Moyer and Wagner and eventually “Big” Steve. N.K. Boswell and the “Committee of Vigilance” brought Laramie back under control.

Learn more about “Big” Steve Long. 

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Ellen Liddy Watson — better known as Cattle Kate – was a young woman who escaped an abusive marriage in Kansas and came to Wyoming to homestead land near Lander in the late 1880s.

She and her new partner Jim Averell found themselves pitted in a resource war against the bigger ranchers in the area. Watson and Averell were charged with cattle rustling and were lynched over the Sweetwater River in July 1889. The trial of those accused of the deaths ended in acquittal as witnesses either died, disappeared, were bribed, or were intimidated into silence. The murders of “Cattle Kate”and Jim Averell helped to spark the Johnson County War in 1892.

Learn more about Cattle Kate and the Johnson County War. 

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Martha Jane Canary “Calamity Jane” was born May 1, 1852, and was an American frontierswoman and professional scout best known for being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok. She appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition.

There are few substantiated facts about Calamity Jane’s life, but a great deal of legends were promoted by Jane herself. An orphan at an early age, she grew up illiterate and poor, taking any work to survive, including prostitution. “Jane” was known for her habit of wearing men’s attire and suffered from alcoholism and depression. She is also remembered for her kindness and compassion to others, particularly the sick and needy.

Learn more about Calamity Jane. 

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Butch Cassidy was a famous American outlaw who served time in the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie (1894-1896).

Born in Utah in 1866, Cassidy’s real name was Robert LeRoy Parker. He was intermittently a cowboy and a cattle rustler, a bank robber and a train robber who teamed up with a succession of other outlaws. His most notable partner — Harry Longabaugh – was known as the Sundance Kid. Together, they were members of the Wild Bunch.

In 1901, when their capture by either sheriff posses or Pinkerton detectives was imminent, Cassidy and the Sundance Kid escaped to South America where they continued to rob banks, trains and mine stations. No one knows for sure what happened to them in the end. One story has Sundance killed by mounted soldiers in Bolivia, while another has Cassidy returning to the United States and dying in obscurity. The 1969 Academy Award winning movie titled “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” starred Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

Learn more about Butch Cassidy and the many theories about what really happened at the end of his life. 

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The Wilcox train robbery occurred at 1:00 a.m. on June 2, 1899, near Wilcox, Wyoming, outside of Laramie. Masked men boarded the Overland Flyer, forced it to a halt and ordered the attendant to open the door. When he refused, the car and safe were blown up; the thieves escaped with $30,000.

The Sun-Leader reported that suspects were the Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy. On the other hand, the Wyoming Derrick reported that the culprits were George Curry and the Roberts brothers. Whomever they were, the authorities believed some of the robbers were heading for Hole in the Wall country in Central Wyoming. There, in a gunfight, Sheriff Joe Hazen was shot and killed, and the robbers escaped across the river.

Another train robbery occurred on August 29, 1900, when robbers seized $50,000 in gold from a Union Pacific train near Tipton, Wyoming. While the robberies were successful, they marked the beginning of the end for the “Wild Bunch.” In 1897, E.H. Harriman took over the railroad and its reconstruction. The special agents he hired, along with the modern communication of long distance telephone service that allowed the agents to trace gang member movements, proved to be the undoing of the gang.

Learn more about the Wilcox robbery and the undoing of the “Wild Bunch.” 

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