Butch Cassidy’s “Lost Manuscript” a Hoax

posted on September 2nd, 2011 in Andes Mountains, Argentina, Bolivia, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, Recent Discoveries

Butch Cassidy (far right), the Sundance Kid (far left) & the Wild Bunch in Fort Worth, Texas 1900. That same year Butch & Sundance would leave for Patagonia, in Argentina, and attempt to go straight. Most historians believe that, eight years later, in 1908, Butch & Sundance were gunned down in San Vicente, a small mining town in Bolivia, after robbing a mining payroll. A few writer-historians believe that Butch survived, returned to the U.S., and lived for decades in the western United States under the alias of William T Phillips.

Anatomy of a Farce

By Dan Buck

Earlier this summer, the Salt Lake City Deseret News published an article, “Lost Butch Cassidy Manuscript Found,” by reporter Michael De Groote, disclosing the discovery of a “long-lost manuscript” said to be the autobiography of the Western outlaw.  Brent Ashworth, a veteran Provo rare book and document dealer, had recently purchased the manuscript, “The Bandit Invincible,” on Abebooks.com.  He told me this week he had paid about $12,000…

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