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WESTERN DEAD GIRLS - ETTA PLACE

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Etta Place

1880? - ? 

Etta Place is the most mysterious female character in the American west. Some historians would like to believe she was a schoolteacher who left her honest life for the sex and romance of the outlaw trail. Others think she might just be another whore who fell in love with the wrong man and followed him to his doom.

Etta Place, or Ethel Place, as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency sometimes listed her, first appeared at the Wild Bunch's hideout, the Robber's Roost, in the winter of 1896-1897. There is a dispute as to whether she was at first Butch (Robert Leroy Parker) Cassidy's girl and then switched to the Sundance Kid (Harry Alonzo Longabaugh), or if she was always only Sundance's woman.

There is a possibility that she is a cousin of Sundance, as his mother's maiden name was "Annie Place." For that matter, the entire name "Etta Place" could be an alias.

The common theory is that Etta was a prostitute from Fanny Porter's bordello in Fort Worth, Texas where the Wild Bunch frequently went to relax and celebrate their latest robbery.

The Ann Bassett Theory

Researcher Doris Karren Burton, a worker at the Outlaw Trail History Center at the county library in Vernal, Utah, instigated a series of computer photograph analyses of Etta Place. The results linked Place to another colorful figure with ties to Utah's past: Ann Bassett, the "Queen of the Cattle Rustlers." Burton had noticed a resemblance between Etta Place and Ann Bassett and learned the timeline of Bassett's absences matched the times Etta Place shows up. Burton published her results in 1992 in the booklet Queen Ann Bassett alias Etta Place.

Ann Bassett lived as a rancher and rustler in Brown's Park, a rugged area on the Green River, which was cut by impassable canyons, rivers, gulches, and gullies. Like Hole in the Wall and Robber's Roost, Brown's Park offered an ideal hideout for fugitives. Furthermore, the lush geography also provided excellent winter and summer range for stolen stock. It is at Brown's Park that she met and forged a friendship with Butch and Sundance.

The Pinkerton records give a physical description of Place that matches Bassett almost identically. Moreover, both women were noted for their classic good looks, intelligence, expert horsemanship, prowess with guns, and reputations as "loose" females.

Ann Bassett was born in Brown's Park on May 25, 1878, to Herb and Elizabeth Bassett and experienced a childhood filled with every aspect of ranch life, including horse riding, calf roping, and a large dose of wild freedom. In 1894, two years after her mother's death, Ann's father enrolled her in St. Mary's Catholic School in Salt Lake City in an attempt to curb her wild side. After only a year the nuns asked the uncontrollable Ann to leave, and she returned to Brown's Park where she became acquainted with Butch and Sundance.

From the winter in 1896-97 till the probable death of Cassidy and Sundance in South America in 1911, the records show that whenever Bassett is out of Brown's Park, Etta Place is running around with Butch and Sundance.

Ann married Frank Willis, a cowboy and prospector, in 1923 and eventually settled in the small southwestern Utah town of Leeds where she died in 1956. To fulfill her wish to have her cremated remains scattered in her beloved Brown's Park, Frank drove there but "didn't have the heart to throw Ann out." Her ashes remained in the trunk of his car until he died in 1963. Family members then buried Ann's ashes at an unmarked location in Brown's Park.

After the September 19, 1900 bank robbery in Winnemucca, Nevada, the five central figures of the Wild Bunch, Butch, Sundance, Harvey Logan, Ben Kilpatrick and Bill Carver arrived in Fort Worth by different routes. Flush with $33,000 from the robbery, they partied in the "Hell's Half Acre" red-light district, celebrating their final reunion as Butch and Sundance were due to leave for South America. In December, the gang decided to have a group photograph taken by photographer John Swartz at his second floor studio over a bar at 705 Main Street.

Swartz was so proud of this group photo that he placed a copy in the downstairs window where it was spotted by a passing Wells Fargo agent who recognized Harvey Logan.

Pinkerton agents and lawmen descended on downtown Fort Worth and the Wild Bunch fled in all directions.

Butch took off for a trip to the Pacific coast while Sundance and Etta visited his family and then went to New York City to wait for him.

On February 20, 1901, Butch, Sundance and Etta Place boarded the S.S. Herminius bound for South America.

By May 15, 1901, the first wanted posters of the gang bearing their new photograph rolled off the presses.

The gang had unwittingly given their enemies an advantage by which to crush them.

"What a great pity we did not get the information
regarding the photograph
while this party [Sundance] was in New York.
It shows how daring these men are,
and while you are looking for them
in the wilderness and mountains
they are in the midst of society."
- William A. Pinkerton

While in NYC, Sundance and Etta had their picture taken together. This is the sole documented photo of Etta Place. The photograph was taken in DeYoung's Studio on lower Broadway.

Sundance and Etta stand as though for a formal wedding portrait. Looking refined and ladylike, she wears a black dress with a white fichu and a small watch-pin. In the portrait, her long brown hair is pulled back from her flawless face and piled on her head in a roll. Her expression is serious and thoughtful.

South America

In Argentina, the trio bought a ranch and lived peacefully, productively, for a time. However, the Pinkertons began searching for them.

Robert A. Pinkerton wrote to Buenos Aires police chief Francisco J. Beazley on July 1, 1903, enclosing "four photographs and descriptions of Mrs. Harry Longabaugh, known in South America as Mrs. Harry A. Place."

Pinkerton detective Frank Dimaio had visited Argentina and traced the outlaws to their Cholila ranch.

"I know nothing of Etta Place's background,
but have the impression that he [the Sundance Kid]
may have met her in a house of ill-fame,
and that she afterwards became his common-law wife. . .
I do not know whether she is a mystery woman or not,
but she evidently has parents in Texas."
- Frank Dimaio letter to James D. Horan, Wild Bunch historian

For whatever reasons, they took up the life of crime again. This time Etta rode with the boys on their bank robberies. When Etta began to suffer from appendicitis, she and Sundance might have returned to Denver for treatment. The hospital officials recalled that Etta Place was "age 23 or 24, 5 ft. 5, 110 pounds, medium complexion, medium dark hair, blue or gray eyes, regular features. No marks or blemishes."

Concordia Tin Mine Superintendent Percy Seibert said that Butch told him Etta had come down with acute appendicitis and "begged the Kid to take her back to the States. They went back to Denver, where Etta entered the hospital."

In an undated (c. 1903) memorandum, the Pinkerton agency noted that Sundance and Etta had visited the United States in 1902 and then returned to Argentina on a British freighter, the Honorius, registering on the crew's list as "Harry A. Place, purser, and Mrs. Harry A. Place, stewardess."

Four Yankee bandits robbed The Banco de la Nación in Villa Mercedes, Argentina on December 19, 1905. Three were identified from newspaper photographs as Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place.

"Harry Longbaugh, using the name of Harry A. Place,
(and his wife), using the name Ethel Place
were in Chubut engaged in cattle raising."
- Robert A. Pinkerton, January 15, 1907

Seibert said he had asked Cassidy if "they had ever heard of Etta again, but he just shook his head."

By this time, Etta was either dead or alive, in the States or married to a rich South American. At any rate, she was not in the company of the two men killed in San Vincente, Bolivia in 1911. The popular theory is that Butch and Sundance, mortally wounded, finished themselves off rather than being captured by the heavily armed military forces surrounding them.

Butch Cassidy's sister, Lula Parker Betenson, in her 1975 book entitled Butch Cassidy, My Brother insisted her brother returned to the United States and was reunited with Sundance and Etta on their ranch in Mexico.

An intriguing theory postulates Butch returned to live out his life as a mostly honorable and peaceful Washington State businessman named William T. Phillips, dying in 1937.

Another legend claims Etta returned to Fort Worth as Eunice Gray and operated a bordello for some years, then ran the Waco Hotel until her death in a fire there in January 1962 at the age of 81.

"I've lived in Forth Worth since 1901.
That is except for the time I had to high-tail it out of town.
Went to South America for a few years
. . . until things settled down."
- Eunice Gray

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