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- You've probably heard of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but what about Tom O'Day?

He also was a member of the colorful old west outlaw gang called The Wild Bunch.

These days, historical re-enactor Ray Maple of Cody enjoys portraying Tom O'Day to audiences around Wyoming and teaches a lot of local history in the process.

We'll meet two colorful Wyoming characters, Ray Maple and Tom O'Day.

I'm Steve Peck at Wyoming PBS.

This is "Wyoming Chronicle".

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council.

Helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

Thinkwy.org.

And by the members of the Wyoming PBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.

- [Steve Peck] Ray Maple has done lots of different things in his life.

He's been a cowboy, an EMT, an author, a competitive shooter, even a movie producer and for the past quarter century, he's also entertained and informed audiences around Wyoming and the west with his historical portrayal of Tom O'Day, a horse thieving outlaw who rode with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid during the waning days of the old west frontier.

Now 79 years old, Ray Maple said he got interested in Tom O'Day because of a different hobby.

- I got involved in this, being a single action shooter.

- [Steve Peck] I see.

- And when you become a single action shooter, you have to pick an alias.

So I picked Tom O'Day for an alias.

Then I looked up what I could find of him and Mrs. Henry there at the Lost Cabin had written a little pamphlet, had a picture of him in it.

And that's how I got started.

- [Steve Peck] Drawing from a vast personal memory bank and supplementing his story with slides custom made for the act, Ray puts on his hat, gets into character and starts the narrative of Tom O'Day.

- I was born in Donegal Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania.

My dad was a union cavalryman during the war and he fought battles at Harper's Ferry and VMI.

He fought 30 some battles.

He came to the states in 1849 or there about, just during the potato famine.

And he met with this local gal there, he ended up having a bunch of kids, Tom being the second oldest.

He had an older sister.

Well, they moved to Dunlop, Iowa, and got a homestead.

After a while, he turned about 14 and he said, dad, I don't wanna be a farmer.

I wanna be a cowboy.

I wanna head west.

I wanna go to maybe Wyoming.

He said, okay, son, you do that.

So he picked out a horse and he got some tack and his mom fixed me a lunch.

And I headed off.

Went up through Nebraska, did a whole bunch of different jobs along the way.

I broke horses as a bronc buster, as a cowboy, a round up cook, and when things really got tough, herded sheep.

I got to Wyoming about 1892, thereabouts, and I hooked up with John Logan.

He had the KC Brand and I'm still a pretty young fellow.

He hired me on and he kind of showed me the ropes.

He was also kind of a mavericker, for lack of a better word, and taught me a lot about that too.

And of course I broke horses.

I did that from the time I was a kid.

One night we were talking and they said or John said, you know, it's kind of a dry spell between Casper and Buffalo.

Let's get us a bar.

So we had the first bar in Kaycee, that was our Watering Hole.

And do you know, he did a hell of a business, too.

But one day, John called me aside and said, Tom, we got a problem.

And I said, well, what's that?

And he said, well, it's you.

And I said, me?

Said, yeah, you seem to be our best customer.

(audience laughing) So maybe it'd be better if you went back to cowboying and then let somebody else tend bar.

I said, okay, that works for me.

You know, in that timeframe, they had these country dances and I'm sure you folks have been to some of them.

Well, me and another Irish kid would get there and we'd kind of get liquored up a little bit and we'd get at it.

We'd have one hell of a fight.

Till one of us couldn't stand up.

And then they said, you're done.

Yeah, I'm done.

Well, let's go back in.

We put our arm around each other and went back into the dance.

And he got so that every time he got to these parties and dances, we got into a fight.

So we were the extra added attraction for these events.

- [Steve Peck] With this anecdote, Ray identifies that characteristic in Tom O'Day that kept him from achieving the same notoriety as his more famous running buddies.

Perhaps, in fact, to his benefit.

- He wasn't a bad person.

He just couldn't handle his liquor.

And that's what got him into trouble.

And he left home when he was 14.

And then about that time too, there was some outlaws that moved into the area from Canada and set up shop up in Hole in the Wall country, Harvey Logan and the boys.

The Outlaw Trail that they kind of pursued started up in Wagner, Montana and went down to El Paso.

Any of that area in between there was fair game for robbin' and plunderin' and all that good stuff.

- [Steve Peck] And Tom O'Day's part in all that good stuff was about to get much more exciting and dangerous.

Listen as Ray Maple introduces both his character and his audience to some of the most notorious men of the late 19th century.

Outlaws who operated from a home base deep within a long deeply creviced outcropping of sandstone in north central Wyoming, called Hole In The Wall.

- Okay.

Here's a guy that hung around up there.

This was Butch Sundance, me, Harvey Logan, Walt Putney and Roberts brothers, just to name a few.

There's old Walt, he and I were pretty good buddies.

We served time in the Deadwood jail together.

He ended up coming back to Wyoming and ended up having a bar up in Pinedale.

Harvey Logan, dapper gentleman, but you wouldn't wanna get on his bad side.

He just soon shoot at you as look at you.

Then the leader of the group, Robert Parker, he came from a good family down in Utah and his dad was a Mormon Bishop, they had a pretty nice spread.

And they had this foreman named Mike Cassidy and Mike was an outlaw and we'd go up into Colorado and up on the Star Valley and up into Utah and rob banks and rustle cows.

He got to hanging around with Mike a lot, decided being an outlaw was a whole lot more exciting than working for his old man.

So he hung around with Mike a lot and then he took Mike's last name, changed it to Robert Cassidy.

He could have been a CEO in any major business today, he was that well organized and people respected him, ranchers and that all thought he was a pretty good guy.

And I'll tell you a couple anecdotal stories as we get into this.

He got a job working at a butcher shop in Rock Springs and they started calling him Butch.

Eureka!

Butch Cassidy was born.

That picture there shows a race between two fire departments on the main drag.

Butch's Butcher's shop is behind that tree.

Then we had the Kirkpatrick and then Harry Longobaugh.

Harry was a Pennsylvania boy like myself.

He came down to Wyoming by way of Canada.

He got him a job working for a ranch in Sundance and things got tight and the rancher let him go.

Well, he didn't think he got enough severance pay, so he took a horse with him.

Well, the rancher didn't take too highly about that.

So he got arrested and he served about a year and a half in the jail there in Sundance.

He got out early because he had some connections.

The governor gave him a reprieve.

And from that point on, he was called Sundance.

Elzy Lay, he's an interesting person.

He was a mining engineer, decided he could make more money robbin' banks than working for the mine.

And you had these other characters.

And then a picture of me, over in the corner.

Posed real well.

Then we had, I guess you'd call 'em groupies today, we had some women that hung around the Hole.

Among those was Etta Place.

She was a schoolmarm, very well poised.

She was a heck of a nice woman and she could ride, rope, shoot and cuss with the best of 'em, too.

Then they had Ann Bassett and she was friends with Butch for a while and Ben Kilpatrick.

Then Josie Bassett, her sister.

She was real close with Elzy Lay, Will Carver and Butch sometimes.

And then Laura Bullion, she was a real hell cat.

Little story here.

Look at those pictures.

Down around Price, Utah, there's a story going around that Etta Place and Ann Bassett were one and the same.

- [Steve Peck] Maple uses Tom O'Day as his centerpiece, but he covers a wide gamut, peppering his show with anecdotes about Lander, Lost Cabin, Rawlins, Casper, Kaycee, Dubois, Cody, Shoshone, Buffalo, Thermopolis and other familiar Wyoming spots and the people who passed through them.

- There's another picture of the Hole.

Not a good place to winter in either.

There's a trail going up into that box canyon.

Robert Redford wrote a book about the Outlaw Trail and this picture was in it.

You go up to the top there, you see a guy on horseback about ready to make a left hand turn.

Makes a left hand turn, follows the edge of that sandstone to where there's a gap.

And you could jump your horses up that gap and get over the top.

No way in heck would I go over it, coming or going.

But we did do that.

Here's a little story about a fella outta Lander, Pushroot Jim.

Pushroot got his name because he farmers and by the way, while I'm thinking about it, do you know what Landers was gonna be called at one time?

Pushroot, Wyoming.

Fortunately, somebody changed it.

That's like that town between that Lander and Dubois called Never Sweat, Wyoming.

But anyway, old Pushroot stole some horses and a posse caught him on the south fork of the Powder and they had a shootout and Pushroot got killed.

Well, they didn't wanna bury him.

So they just threw him over the creek bank and left him.

Well, I'd been in town to the Sandbar, oh, few months after that and spent all my money, good place to spend it was the Sandbar.

So on the way home, I found these bones along the creek bank.

I got to looking at 'em.

I said by God, they're human bones.

I wonder if that's old Pushroot?

And more I thought about it, the madder I got.

So we got up into the Hole and I talked to the fellows said, hey, fellas I think I found what happened to a Pushroot.

And they said, you did?

And I said, well, you know I think I'm gonna go up there and get a shovel and a saddle blanket and give him a decent burial.

So the fellas said, well, let's all go.

So we went up there and found what we could, put it in the gunny sack and buried it.

And by God, we felt pretty darn good about it.

We might be outlaws, but we still had a little trace of decency.

Then we went back to the cabin and had one hell of an Irish wake.

Now here was good, good stuff.

The Great Bell Fourche bank robbery.

We did our best jobs kind of in June, this was June 28th, 1897.

Well there'd, Sundance and me and Walt Putney and Roberts Brothers and Kid Curry were at the Hole and we decided we're gonna go and rob that bank.

We heard that it was owned by an old rancher and had a lot of money in it.

So we rode all the way from the Hole to a hillside outside of Belle Fourche and then set up camp.

Well, they sent me into town to case the joint, as they say today.

Well, I got in there and found out where the bank was, most important and where the livery stable was and the mercantile and then I'm going past Sebastian's Saloon and there's noise coming out of it, people having a good time.

And I opened the doors and by God, there was a bunch of old cavalry fellas that were celebrating some battles of the Civil War, kind of reunion.

And I knew a few of those guys and they said, hey, Tom, come in and have a beer.

And it was a hot day and I was sweaty and boy, that sounded pretty good.

So went in there and I had three or four.

Back then, beer was about 17% and they served it to you in these great big mugs with a foam head on there, man, that was good.

And about three or four of those that puts a good man down.

Matter of fact, I spent the night on a pool table covered up with a saddle blanket.

Well, I was pretty hung over then.

So they said, Monday morning, we're gonna go to Belle Fourche and rob that bank.

So we get up there and we get into town about, I guess, about 10 o'clock.

Kid Curry says, Tom, you get over there by Sebastian's Saloon, you kind of know what's going on there.

And Walt, you get up there by the livery stable, keep an eye on things and me and the rest of the guys are gonna walk around town.

Well, it was getting towards noon and it was getting hot and I was getting thirsty.

So by golly, I had to go in and have a cool one.

Well, meanwhile, the guys got up to the bank.

They got up there and got in before the safe timer opened the safe and they got into an altercation with one of the clerks.

The clerk fired on Kid Curry, but his cap didn't go off, fortunately.

Well, so they had to wait about 10, 15 minutes for the vault to get open.

Well, they got open and they got their money and they headed out of town.

Well, I'm up there at the bar having a cool one.

And I hear bang, bang, bang, bang.

And I look out and by God, they're leaving me.

They left me behind.

By golly, I better get on my horse.

So I kind of stumble and stagger out to the front of the saloon to the hitchin' rail, put my foot in the stirrup and my horse shies away and he's followin' the rest of boys.

I'm in the middle of the street.

What the heck's going?

I look over there that mercantile and there's a mule tied up over there.

I'm gonna take him.

So I amble over there and try and jump on that mule and just as I'm jumping on there, a voice comes from inside there says, hey, that's my mule, get away from him.

And the mule shies away and I end up on my keister.

Well, things are getting pretty exciting.

So I get up and I go hiding behind Sebastian's Saloon.

And things are really getting exciting then.

Well, I find this hidey-hole, couldn't find a better place.

(audience reacting) Well, I'm sitting there meditating and the door flies open.

Deputy opens the door and he says, you're under arrest.

I said, for what?

For robbing the bank.

Hey, how could I rob a bank?

I don't have my gun.

I'd taken it off and threw it down in that other hole, said, you're still under arrest, come with me.

So he took me towards the jail.

I got pretty close to it and that's all I found.

Where's the building?

Well, it burned down.

We had a vagrant, got cold, lit a fire and burned it down.

But that's where you're going.

So they put me in there and that night they had one hell of this rainstorm, you know how those gullywashers get.

Well, they felt sorry for me and put me in the vault.

So that was as close as I was gonna come to any real money.

Rest of the guys, they made it up to Red Lodge and they got caught later on.

They transported me and Walt and Curry to Deadwood and put us into Deadwood jail.

Well, they caught the rest of the guys up in Red Lodge and they brought 'em down, so we were all together again, family reunion.

Well, come Halloween, the jailer left a key in the lock and we made a break.

We got as far as Sturgis before they caught us, hauled us back into jail and they held the trial while we were in absentia and come to find out, the guys only got $92.50.

Hell of a robbery.

So they got had, they got some jail time.

Walt and I, we got off because they couldn't have enough information on us.

Then we had the Wilcox train robbery.

That was another one in June.

1899.

UP was transporting a lot of money.

So it was decided that we go down and lighten this load a little bit, which we did.

On the way down, we stopped at ranches about every 30 miles and cut a deal with them for fresh horses.

And that was one of Butch's secrets.

He always made sure that we had fresh remounts every so often.

The posse didn't and the ranchers like Butch, because a lot of times, if a rancher helped him, they might wake up some morning and find a couple of $20 gold pieces on their window sill or a haunch of beef or something hanging in their tree.

Matter of fact, a little story that was told to me down in Sundance, this old boy granddad was working in the yard and Butch came down and asked him, rode in and said, sir, could I buy about six head of horses?

And the old boy said, damn, I'd love to sell you six head, but I can't.

Butch looks at him, he says, why not?

Why not?

Well, he says, the banker is coming and gonna foreclose on me, won't let me sell anything.

Well, Butch mulls it over a little bit and he says, what can you do?

What can I do to help you out of this situation?

And he quoted a figure, Butch pulled into his pocket and pulled down a wad of bills and weren't enough to take care of it.

He gets these horses and he's down the road.

The banker shows up, he gets his money.

He's happy as a lark.

Heads back to town, but he didn't quite make it.

That's what you call a quicken loan.

(audience laughing) No deposit, no interest.

Well, the train came and stopped, well, Butch and one of the fellows, or I guess it was a couple of the guys went up in the cab and got the engineer and the conductor down and they walked back to the baggage car.

And the baggage man told the clerk inside there, open up and the old boy says, why?

Butch Cassidy's out here and he wants you to open up.

I ain't gonna do it, the guy says.

And then the conductor says, you might wanna think twice on that, he just told me he's got some dynamite.

Okay.

The door flies open, jump up in there.

Safe's right in the middle.

Open the safe.

I can't.

Don't have a key.

Don't have the combination.

They only have it at each end.

All right.

We can take care of that.

Bring the dynamite up.

Put 11 sticks underneath there, blew it up.

We had money coming down like confetti.

Some of it was whole, some of it wasn't, but we got a couple of gunnysack loads and we headed off.

That's what express car looks like after you blow it up.

- [Steve Peck] Through other tales of bank robbery, horse thieving, shootouts, trials and jails, Ray Maple spins more richly detailed yarns about Tom O'Day and his cohorts, including his version of what really happened to Butch and Sundance.

In the end, says Ray, Tom O'Day emerges as an outlaw, yes, but not a very dangerous one.

- That guy said I was a bad'un, only when I drank.

- [Steve Peck] How long have you been portraying Tom O'Day?

- About 22 years.

And I get to talking to people and I'll slip in and out of character and they don't know whether they're talking to Tom O'Day or Ray Maple.

And I had a newspaper gal interview me.

And she said, now at the outset, who am I talking to?

Am I talking to Ray?

Or am I talking to Tom?

A little bit of both.

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

Thinkwy.org.

And by the members of the Wyoming PBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.