Art News

Old Text, New Wrinkles: Did Notorious Old West Outlaw Butch Cassidy Survive?

CHEYENNE, WY (AP).- Did Butch Cassidy, the notorious Old West outlaw who most historians believe perished in a 1908 shootout in Bolivia, actually survive that battle and live to old age, peacefully and anonymously, in Washington state? And did he pen an autobiography detailing his exploits while cleverly casting the book as biography under another name? A rare books collector says he has obtained a manuscript with new evidence that may give credence to that theory. The 200-page manuscript, “Bandit Invincible: The Story of Butch Cassidy,” which dates to 1934, is twice as long as a previously known but unpublished novella of the same title by William T. Phillips, a machinist who died in Spokane in 1937. Utah book collector Brent Ashworth and Montana author Larry Pointer say the text contains the best evidence yet — with details only Cassidy could have known