rumoured to have hid out<\/a> in Moose Jaw, Sask.<\/p>\n“American authorities couldn’t pursue them,\u201d Edwards said.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766940129_48_default.jpg\")
The Bar U Ranch, located south of Longview, Alta., pictured around 1892. Records indicate American outlaw Harry Longabaugh was a ranch hand here in the early 1890s. Today, it’s a designated national historic site. (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)<\/p>\n
Edwards said the Sundance Kid\u2019s travels took him as far as southern Saskatchewan, where he and fellow outlaws would flee the scene of their robberies and hide out in places like Big Muddy and Big Beaver, located just north of the border.<\/p>\n
Longabaugh is said to have partnered with Frank Hamilton to open a saloon in Calgary\u2019s since-demolished Grand Central Hotel toward the end of his time in Alberta. Edwards said it\u2019s unlikely a young cowboy would have made enough money legitimately to make an investment like that.<\/p>\n
To Edwards, the ability of the Sundance Kid to live a double life north and south of the border \u2014 a criminal in the States and a respectable worker in Canada \u2014 is fascinating.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a separate life in Alberta,\u201d he said. \u201cHe kind of had his respectable life, and sometimes he’d go up there when the heat was big in the States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edwards said he would use multiple names.<\/p>\n
Butch Cassidy didn\u2019t work in Alberta like the Sundance Kid did, but according to a 1970 Glenbow Journal article, he reportedly visited Longabaugh north of the border at least once in the early 1890s.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766940129_937_default.jpg\")
An unidentified cowboy roping horses in the Bar U Ranch’s round-up corral. The photo is believed to have been taken in the 1890s. American outlaw Harry Longabaugh was listed on 1891 census records as a 25-year-old horse breaker at the Bar U Ranch, which at the time had more than 800 horses and 10,000 cattle. (Glenbow Library and Archives Collection)<\/p>\n
By all accounts, Longabaugh was a hard worker and a good cowboy. <\/p>\n
How exactly the Sundance Kid got into crime \u2014 before and after his time in Canada \u2014 remains a mystery to researchers like Buck.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vast majority of cowboys were not outlaws,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s hard to explain why, among the hundreds and hundreds of cowboys out west, Sundance was one of the few to get into this sort of wandering life of cowboy and occasionally outlaw.\u201d<\/p>\n
It likely came down to the thrill, as well as the lucrative nature of being a successful bank and train robber, Buck said.<\/p>\n
![\"Wild](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766940129_326_default.jpg\")
Wild Bunch members Harry Longabaugh, left, and Etta Place. The two outlaws, along with Butch Cassidy, fled to South America in the early 1900s, where the final chapters of their lives remain a mystery. (Library of Congress)<\/p>\n
\u201cTruth be told, you’re going to die poor if you spend your life as a cowboy in those days,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Following nearly a decade of robberies across the United States, the Sundance Kid fled to South America in the early 1900s alongside Butch Cassidy and his romantic partner, Etta Place.<\/p>\n
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are believed to have perished in Bolivia in 1908, though that claim has been contested. Place is said to have disappeared without a trace.<\/p>\n
As Vicky Kelly wrote in the 1970 issue of the Glenbow Journal: \u201cWhile such tales seldom involved Western Canada, the Sundance Kid’s three years of peaceful residence in Alberta \u2026 provide an interesting link with the American frontier.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long before the first Calgary Stampede, the city attracted a different kind of cowboy. Harry Longabaugh \u2014 better…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-374385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766940128_919_default.jpg\")
A cutout of one of the few existing photos of American outlaw Harry Longabaugh, better known as the Sundance Kid. (Library of Congress)<\/p>\n