Photo and Commentary ©2026 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, May 25, 2026
Hollywood seems to have a way of doing that, of causing you to turn around and take notice of that which you might otherwise have ignored. Such was the case as we drove along a rural road in Utah. A road sign proclaimed in bold letters, “Childhood home of Butch Cassidy”. It’s doubtful the name would have prompted a response had Hollywood not capitalized on the romanticized version of train robber/bank robber, Robert Leroy Parker, also known as Butch Cassidy. But turn around we did since the absence of traffic allowed a leisurely U-turn.
The old farmhouse, restored by historical preservationists, differs little from others of the same era near Circleville, Utah where his Mormon parents raised him. His early life appears to have been boringly uneventful, leaving home in his early teens to find work on several of the nearby ranches. It’s strange to think how his life would have gone unnoticed except for the bad choices he made which resulted in the deaths of several law officers.
It’s easy to be lured by the thought that if you really want to be noticed then you’ve got to break a few rules. Even our U-turn on that grassy stretch of highway seems to reinforce that idea. But Solomon helps us put things into perspective: “Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him.” (Ecclesiastes 8:12 NIV) And in the case of Butch, it’s quite likely that he did not live a long life but died a violent death in Bolivia so ensuring him a place as an infamous icon of the Wild West.