This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

When people think of Butch Cassidy, they often imagine Paul Newman's character from the

famous movie, Bouch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, made in 1969 with Robert Redford.

But the real story of Butch Cassidy is the story of a Western godfather of sorts who brought

organization to a world of unorganized crime.

Here to tell the story is Roger McGrath.

Roger is the author of Gunfighters, Hobbyman, and Vigilantees, Violence on the Frontier.

Let's take a listen.

Butch Cassidy, the last great outlaw of the American West, is born Robert LaRoy Parker

in Beaver, Utah on Friday the 13th in April 1866 to a family of Mormon immigrants.

He is the first of 13 children born to two of the earliest Mormon settlers, Maximilian and Anne Parker.

In 1879, Maximilian buys a homestead in Circle Valley,

and 13-year-old Robert Leroy, or Roy, as he is called, has thought old enough to help

support the family and is sent off to work at a nearby ranch. Here's Tom Hatch, author of The Last

Outlaws. Bob Parker was the oldest of 13 kids, and so he became the surrogate father, and he would take care of the kids.

Bob was like a big kid himself, and he was throughout his whole life.

He was a very gregarious man who made friends wherever he went because of his personality.

His mother homeschooled the kids, mostly on the Bible.

She would hold services there.

He absolutely adored his mother.

Yale Force winds and droughts make life on the Parker homestead a struggle.

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