September 19, 1900, remains a red-letter day in the history of Winnemucca, Nevada. The date is enshrined in historical markers, plaques, newspaper and magazine articles, books, stories, myths, legends, and lies.
On that date, the First National Bank in Winnemucca was robbed.
The outlaws responsible apparently camped out near town for several days (some say at least ten days), reconnoitering the area and planning the heist.
Three, maybe four, robbers were involved. Three reportedly entered the bank, relieved the cash drawers and safe of some $32,000, then made a daring escape, dodging bullets as they went.
A posse commandeered a steam engine at the train station and pursued the robbers, who eventually abandoned the roads and railroad line and escaped, heading north toward Idaho.
The most popular story, still in circulation all these years later, is that Butch Cassidy pulled off the heist, assisted by the Sundance Kid and George “Flat Nose” Curry.
Or maybe it was “Kid” Curry, or Harvey Logan, or perhaps, Ben “Tall Texan” Kilpatrick. Accounts vary.
The bank building still stands, affixed with a bronze plaque that reads, “First National Bank / Robbed Sept. 1900 by / Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch / 1969.”
It is a popular story in Winnemucca. The local historical organization and museum includes the story in its exhibits and tours. They tell of a town boy who was purportedly given one of the getaway horses, a white one, by Butch Cassidy himself. Businesses in Winnemucca carry Cassidy’s name. Thousands attend the annual celebration of “Butch Cassidy Days.”
Hold Your Horses, That Might Not Be Right
Despite the claims of Winnemucca and some historians and history buffs, other historians say Butch Cassidy and his accomplices were nowhere near Winnemucca.
On August 29 — less than three weeks before the Nevada robbery — Cassidy’s gang (his participation is debated) is known to have held up a Union Pacific train hear Tipton, Wyoming.
That being the case, the outlaws would have had to travel some 600 miles on horseback in three weeks, or less than two if the bandits arrived 10 days before the robbery. In either case, a difficult venture. There are other aspects of the Winnemucca claim that are known to be false.
Then, Who?
So, if not Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch, who?
Some lay the blame on Hugh and Charley Whitney of Star Valley in Wyoming, with help from Charley Manning.
The Whitney brothers were notorious outlaws for a time, with several robberies and other crimes on their résumés. But given the fact that Charley Whitney was only 10 years old at the time of the Winnemucca holdup, and Hugh age 12, blame for that robbery is easily dismissed.
Another story puts the blame on Tap Duncan, whose outlaw history includes crimes in Texas, Idaho, Arizona, and elsewhere. He, at times, rode with bandits associated with Cassidy and likely with Butch himself.
Duncan’s reported accomplices in the Winnemucca holdup were his brothers Abijah “Bije” (who may have hatched the plan) and Jim, with Green Berry Ketchum and Ira Brackett. It is through the Brackett family that this story came to light.
Chet Brackett II wrote that he found materials, in his words, “written by my Uncle Chet when I purchased his old family home. In the course of remodeling the house, I came across these journals. They were aged with time, and written in a disorganized manner . . . reliving the stories of his younger years during long and lonely winter evenings in Three Creeks, Idaho.”
The uncle “wrote about the Duncan family as well as his own,” Brackett said, including “a story about an amazing man Tap Duncan.”
An Inside Job, Perhaps
According to the Brackett telling, the robbery was an inside job engineered by the bank manager, George Nixon.
When Tap and Bije Duncan approached him about a loan to buy a ranch, he said, in Brackett’s telling: “The only way you could get that kind of money out of this bank,” he paused, “would be to rob it.”
Apparently, he meant it, and meant for the Duncans to do the robbing.
Nixon wanted none of the money—it seems the bank was failing, and managing a bankrupt bank would sideline his political aspirations. A robbery was something else. Eventually, the Duncans agreed to do the job.
In the broad strokes, the robbery and escape, in Brackett’s account, happened much the same as the stories attributing the crime to Cassidy.
Brackett’s story even includes the gift of a horse (of a different color) to a local boy by one of the outlaws. He accounts for another piece of “evidence” in some accounts attributing the robbery to Butch and the boys—a note Cassidy supposedly left for an Idaho storekeeper he had burgled for supplies in order to pull of the Winnemucca job.
Duncan’s story offers a different explanation, using the burglary—which otherwise played no part in his Winnemucca story—to shift blame. This is how Tap told it, according to Brackett:
Double Cover
“Cassidy and his Wild Bunch have used my name to cover some of their deeds in the past. This time I am gonna use theirs to cover us. They owe it to me.”
He smiled that joking smile of his. “Tonight, Jim,” Tap was getting more excited every word he spoke, “Tonight we are going to take two of these $100 gold pieces and the money sack from the bank, we will leave it on the door to Faraday’s store with a note.”
Around midnight, Jim and Tap snuck up to the store and nailed the sack and the note to the door. The note read: Sorry for the scare old timer. We needed the grub and coats to get to Winnemucca. Hope this’ll cover yer trouble. Til we meet again. Butch.
Even in light of an abundance of conjecture, conflicting claims, and reams of writing, the question remains: Who robbed the First National Bank in Winnemucca on September 19, 1900?
R. B. Miller can be reached at WriterRodMiller@gmail.com
