One of the world's most famous outlaws, once portrayed by Robert Redford on the silver screen, has ties to a historic Alberta ranch.
If you've ever visited the Bar U Ranch National Historic Site near Longview, you've tread the same ground as Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, also known as The Sundance Kid.
Longabaugh was born in Pennsylvania in 1867 and was the youngest of five children.
In 1882, at the age of 15, he travelled west in a covered wagon with his cousin to help settle his relative's homestead near Cortez, Colorado.
It was there that Longabaugh worked as a wrangler at a nearby ranch and learned how to breed and buy horses.
It is believed that it was around this time that Longabaugh first met Robert LeRoy Parker, otherwise known as Butch Cassidy.
After leaving Cortez, Colorado in 1886, Longabaugh found brief work at the N Bar N ranch in Montana, but harsh conditions during the winter of 1886-1887 caused layoffs on the ranch, and Longabaugh was one of the unlucky ones who got the boot.
From there, Longabaugh made his way to Wyoming and got a job at the Powder River Cattle Company, known for the '76' cattle brand and often referred to as "The 76 Ranch."
It was there where he met and worked with Cyril Everett Johnson, who was known as "The Virginian" and is believed to be the basis for the 1902 book of the same name.
In 1887, while in Wyoming, Longabaugh stole a horse, saddle, and a gun from a worker on a ranch in Crook County, which led to his arrest and subsequent 18-month stay in a jail in Sundance, Wyoming, and ultimately giving him his nickname, "The Sundance Kid."
After his release from jail on February 8th, 1889, Longabaugh eventually made his way back to Colorado, where he lived with a distant cousin of his.
It was at that time that Longabaugh joined up with Robert LeRoy Parker (aka Butch Cassidy), Tom McCarty, and Matt Warner in holding up and robbing the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, Colorado on June 24th, 1889.
Longabaugh, needing a safe place to lay low after the robbery, ventured north into Canada and arrived just in time for the 1890 cattle season.
Once in Canada, he got work on the H2 ranch near Fort MacLeod where he broke horses for the McHugh brothers, who had a contract to supply beef to the Blackfoot reserve nearby.
From there, it is believed that he began breaking horses for the Calgary-Edmonton Railway Company near High River.
After that, he reached out to his old pal Cyril Everett Johnson, who was in the Cochrane area at that time.
Johnson had made his way to the area while Longabaugh was still behind bars in Wyoming and was the foreman for the North West Cattle Company by 1899.
Founded in 1882, it was one of the foremost ranching operations in the country. Due to the shape of the brand they used, a bar with the letter U under it, the company became known as the Bar U Ranch.
At that time, the Bar U had over 10,000 head of cattle and over 800 horses.
According to an 1891 Dominion Census, the Bar U Ranch was enumerated on April 6th, 1891, and it was reported that a 'Henry Longabaugh [sic], age 25, birthplace U.S.A, occupation horse breaker,' was employed there.
Adam Buchholz, student interpreter for the Bar U Ranch, says that Longabaugh worked there as a ranch hand.
"He would've been helping out for roundup for branding of cattle and the selection for the meat market," Bucholz explains. "And then also he would've been helping break horses for the ranch, which is training those horses that haven't been ridden much yet."
Bucholz says that he would've also helped to build some of the buildings at the ranch.
During his tenure at the Bar U, not only did Longabaugh prove himself to be worthy of his job, but he proved to be well-liked.
There are reports from cowboys who worked with him who were thoroughly impressed with him.
In fact, the book The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime recalls an occasion wherein Longabaugh saved the life of a fellow cowboy.
As the story goes, Longabaugh and Fred Ings from the Midway Ranch were tasked with moving cattle late one autumn night, when a blizzard came in from the north.
At that time, Longabaugh had built a reputation for fearing neither man nor devil and even with the blinding snow from the storm, he went to the front of the herd to lead them to their destination.
Ings stayed back to help keep the herd together.
But in the process of keeping stragglers with the herd, a position known as drag riding, Ings was having trouble staying on his horse amid the blizzard.
Noticing Ing was no longer riding with the herd, Longabaugh headed back into the storm to find him.
Longabaugh did eventually find the other rancher and brought him back to camp and was credited as having saved the man's life.
Another rancher, known as Bert Sheppard, is also reported as having held a high opinion of Longabaugh.
In the Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime, Sheppard is quoted as describing Longabaugh as "a good rider, roper and all-round top hand."
This was despite most people being fully aware of his previous trouble with the law in the United States.
But that didn't mean that he wouldn't find himself having encounters with police north of the border.
According to various sources, including from the Bar U Ranch and The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime, Longabaugh was arrested by the North-West Mounted Police (the precursor to the RCMP) for 'cruelty to animals' on August 7th, 1891.
After hiring a lawyer, the charges were dropped that same day by Super Intendent J.H. McIllree and Inspector A.R. Cuthbert, with no known explanations as to why the issue was dismissed so abruptly.
On top of the charges being dropped, Longabaugh stayed on at the Bar U, indicating that the ranch owners didn't believe the accusations to be true.
It is believed that this run-in with the police was due to a fellow cowboy at the Bar U who had taken a dislike to Longabaugh.
As the story goes, cowboy Herbert Millar claimed that Longabaugh had a small hacksaw hidden between his saddle and the horse blanket underneath.
It's presumed that both men knew that the tool could come in handy if Longabaugh ever found himself in jail.
Through it all, Longabaugh and Cyril Everett Johnson remained friends and co-workers, and on November 18th, 1891, Longabaugh was the best man at Johnson's wedding in High River and signed as a witness.
Sometime after Johnson's wedding, Herb Millar, the cowboy who claimed to have seen a hacksaw under Longabaugh's saddle, became the foreman at the Bar U, which didn't look good for Longabaugh.
After that, Longabaugh went into business with Frank Hamilton and was co-owner of the Grand Central Hotel saloon on 9th Ave SE in Calgary.
Unfortunately, though, Hamilton was known to not pay his partners, which irked Longabaugh and led to an altercation between the two.
It's reported that after Longabaugh shoved a gun into Johnson, Johnson paid Longabaugh, but they were no longer partners.
According to Sandra Codd, the Bar U Ranch's Visitor Experience Officer, after his failed business venture, Longabaugh found himself back at the Bar U.
"Worked for a little bit breaking horses and then headed south, and that's when he became the Sundance Kid. When he was up here, it was just Harry Longabaugh."
Once he was back in the United States, he and two others supposedly robbed the Great Northern No. 23 train in Montana on November 29th, 1892.
The two other train robbers, Bill Madden and Harry Bass were eventually recognized as two of the train robbers and were arrested.
During the investigation, both Madden and Bass identified Longabaugh as the third train robber, but he was able to avoid authorities.
From there, Longabaugh eventually joined Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch, and the rest is history.
To learn more about the Bar U Ranch and its storied history, click here.