Laura Bullion ~ "Rose of the Wild Bunch"

Laura Bullion, daughter of Henry Bullion (a Native American) and Fredy Byler, was born about October 1876 (the exact day is unknown). Most sources indicate she was born in Knickerbocker, Irion, Texas. 

Data in the 1880 Federal Census suggests she might have been born on a farm in the township of Palarm, Faulkner, Arkansas and might have grown up in Tom Green County, Texas. The 1900 Federal Census shows a 23-year-old Laura Bullion, born October 1876 in Arkansas and notes her occupation as "housekeeper" living with her grandparents E. R. & Serena Byler, her aunt Mrs. Mary Allen and her three children at the Byler homestead in Commissioner's Precinct Number 4, Tom Green County, Texas. 

In an arrest report dated 6 November 1901, her age is mentioned as 28. If the birth year of 1876 is correct, she would have been 24 or 25 years of age at that time. Her death certificate states Laura's age as 74 and her date of birth as October 4, 1887. If the birth year of 1876 is correct, she would have been 84 or 85 years of age at the time of death. The certificate is issued under the name Freda Bullion Lincoln, a false identity she assumed when she moved to Memphis, claiming to be the war widow of Maurice Lincoln and making herself about ten years younger than she was.

Laura's father had been an outlaw and was acquainted with outlaws William Carver ("News Carver") and Ben Kilpatrick ("The Tall Texan"), both of whom Laura met when she was around 13 years old. Her aunt, Viana Byler, married Carver in 1891 but she died from fever soon after the marriage. At age 15, Laura began a romance with Carver.

She also worked as a prostitute for a time, until reaching the age of either 16 or 17. It's believed she returned to prostitution from time to time, working mostly in the brothel of Madame Fannie Porter in San Antonio, Texas ... a frequent hideaway for gang members.

When she first became involved with Carver, he was riding with the Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum gang, and Laura wanted to join him. However, he would not allow it at first, and they only saw one another between robberies. While in Utah and on the run from lawmen, Carver became involved with the Wild Bunch gang, led by Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay.

In the early 1890s, she became involved romantically with Ben Kilpatrick ("The Tall Texan"), after Carver began a relationship with a prostitute named Lillie Davis, whom he had met while at Fannie Porter's brothel in San Antonio, Texas. As the gang robbed trains, Laura supported them by selling stolen goods, and making connections that could give the gang steady supplies and horses.

Laura became a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang in the 1890s; her cohorts were fellow outlaws, including the Sundance Kid, "Black Jack" Ketchum, and Kid Curry. For several years in the 1890s, she was romantically involved with outlaw Ben Kilpatrick ("The Tall Texan"), a bank and train robber and acquaintance of her father. Members of the Wild Bunch nicknamed her "Della Rose", a name she came by after meeting Della Moore. She was also referred to as the "Rose of the Wild Bunch". 

By 1901, she was again involved with Carver, as well as occasional involvement with other members of the gang. When Carver was killed by lawmen on 1 April 1901, she was back with Kilpatrick again, and the two fled to Knoxville, Tennessee. Della Moore and Kid Curry met up with them there, and the four stayed together for a number of months, until October, when Della was arrested for passing money linked to one of the gangs robberies.

After the Great Northern Train robbery in 1901, she and Kilpatrick fled east to evade the law and traveled under the names "Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Arnold".

On 6 November 1901, she was arrested on federal charges for "forgery of signatures to banknotes" at the Laclede Hotel in St. Louis. She had $8,500 worth of robbed banknotes in her possession, stolen in the Great Northern train robbery. In the arrest report, Laura's name is filed as "Della Rose" and her aliases are stated to be "Clara Hays" and "Laura Casey & [Laura] Bullion". Her profession as prostitute. 

According to a New York Times article, she was "masquerading as "Mrs. Nellie Rose" at the time of her arrest. The same article also mentions the suspicion that she, "disguised as a boy", might have taken part in a train robbery in Montana. The paper cites Chief of Detectives Desmond: "I wouldn't [sic] think helping to hold up a train was too much for her. She is cool, shows absolutely no fear, and in male attire would readily pass for a boy. She has a masculine face, and that would give her assurance in her disguise." 

On 12 December 1901, Kilpatrick was arrested. Curry escaped capture on 13 December 1901, killing two Knoxville policemen in the process. Laura and Kilpatrick were both convicted of robbery, with Bullion being sentenced to five years in prison, and Kilpatrick receiving a 20-year sentence. She served three and a half years before being released in 1905. Kilpatrick was not released from prison until 1911.

Kilpatrick stayed in contact with Bullion through letters. By the time of his release from prison in 1911, she had become involved with at least four other men, but they never reconnected nor did they ever see one another again. Kilpatrick was killed robbing a train on 13 March 1912. By that time, all the members of the Wild Bunch gang were either in prison, dead or had served a prison sentence and moved on to other things in their lives.

In 1918, Laura moved to Memphis, where she spent the remainder of her life working as a householder and seamstress, and later as a drapery maker, dressmaker and interior designer. In Memphis she used the names "Freda Lincoln", "Freda Bullion Lincoln" and "Mrs. Maurice Lincoln", claiming to be a war widow and her late husband had been Maurice Lincoln. She also made herself ten years younger, claiming to have been born in 1887. 

According to her obituary, Bullion died of heart disease at the Shelby County Hospital at 6:45 p.m. on December 2, 1961. The memorial service was held two days later, at 11:30 a.m. on December 4. She is buried in the Memorial Park Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee). She was the last surviving member of the Wild Bunch gang. Her bronze grave marker has a border of embossed rose vines and reads:  

Freda Bullion Lincoln

Laura Bullion

The Thorny Rose

1876 - 1961

For a number of years prior to her death, Laura was one of only three people who had actually known the mysterious Etta Place, girlfriend to the Sundance Kid. Place simply disappeared in 1909, following his alleged death in Bolivia. At that same time, a woman named Eunice Gray began operating a brothel in Texas, Gray was often speculated to be Etta Place. Only Laura Bullion, Ann Bassett, and Josie Bassett could have confirmed otherwise. 

Etta Place

According to the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Etta Place had classic good looks, was 5'4" to 5'5" in height and weighed between 110 lb and 115 lb, with a medium build and brown hair. A Pinkerton memorandum dated 1906 noted she was 27 to 28 years old, placing her birth around 1878. This is confirmed by a hospital staff record from Denver, where she received treatment in May 1900, which reports her age as "22 or 23," again putting her birth year around 1878.

She is best known as the companion of American outlaws Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker) and the Sundance Kid (Harry Alonzo Longabaugh), both members of the outlaw gang known as the Wild Bunch.

Principally the companion of Longabaugh, little is known about her because both her origin and her fate remain shrouded in mystery. Even her real name is a mystery; "Place" was the maiden surname of Longabaugh's mother (Annie Place) and she is recorded in various sources as Mrs. Harry Longabaugh or Mrs. Harry A. Place. In the one instance where she is known to have signed her name, she did so as "Mrs. Ethel Place". Because Longabaugh's mother was a Place, some rumors suggest that she and Longabaugh were first cousins.

The Pinkertons called her "Ethel", "Ethal", "Eva" and "Rita" before finally settling on "Etta" for their wanted posters. Her name may have become "Etta" after she moved to South America, where Spanish speakers could not pronounce "Ethel".

Those who met Place claimed the first thing they noticed about her was that she was strikingly pretty, with a very nice smile and that she was cordial, refined and an excellent shot with a rifle. She was said to have spoken in an educated manner, and she indicated she was originally from the East Coast, although she never revealed an exact location.

Eyewitnesses indicated, years afterward, that Place was one of only five women known to have ever been allowed into the Wild Bunch hideout at Robbers Roost in southern Utah, the other four having been Will Carver's girlfriend Josie Bassett, who also was involved with Parker for a time; Josie's sister and Parker's longtime girlfriend Ann Bassett; Elzy Lay's girlfriend Maude Davis; and gang member Laura Bullion.

She was speculated to have once married a schoolteacher, and at least one person claimed Place said she was a teacher who abandoned her husband and two children to be with Longabaugh.

The claim that Place met the gang while working as a prostitute is also widely believed; some claim that she was originally Parker's lover and became involved with Longabaugh later, having met both while working in the brothel of Madame Fannie Porter in San Antonio, which was frequented by members of the Wild Bunch gang. In fact, through Madame Porter's, several gang members met girlfriends who later traveled with them, including Kid Curry and prostitute Della Moore and Will Carver and Lillie Davis. Wild Bunch female gang member Laura Bullion is believed to have worked at the brothel from time to time.

Longabaugh is on the lower left; Parker is on the lower right.
This photo, taken ca. 1901, helped Pinkerton detectives to
identify members of the Wild Bunch.

Timeline generally accepted by historians:

• 1899-1900: Place was living in Texas and being courted by Harry A. Longabaugh, aka the Sundance Kid. Some stories claim Place was a housekeeper or possibly a prostitute in Fannie Porter's sporting house during this time.
• December 1900: Place and Longabaugh reportedly marry, with him using the alias of Harry A. Place, shortly after he is photographed in the famous Fort Worth Five photo. However, there are no marriage records to prove this.
• January 1901: Longabaugh and Place visit his family in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania.
• February 1901: Longabaugh and Place visit New York City, and Tiffany's Jewelers where they purchase a lapel watch and stickpin and posed for the now-famous DeYoung portrait at a studio in Union Square on Broadway. It is one of only two known images of her.
• February 20, 1901: Longabaugh and Place board the RMS Herminius bound for Buenos Aires, Argentina. Parker is with them and posing as "James Ryan" herfictional brother. There they settled on a ranch which they purchased near Cholila in the Chubut Province of west-central Argentina.
• March 3, 1902: Longabaugh and Place sail on the ship S.S. Soldier Prince from Argentina to New York City. Pinkerton detectives find evidence that Place was homesick and wanting to visit her family, but were unable to identify who her family was.
• April 2, 1902: Longabaugh and Place register at Mrs. Thompson's Boarding House in New York City, and visit members of his family in Atlantic City, New Jersey, then visit Coney Island. They also possibly traveled to a Dr. Pierce's Invalid Hotel in Buffalo, New York, for unspecified medical treatment. They then traveled west, where again they sought medical treatment, this time in Denver, Colorado. 
• July 10, 1902: Place and Longabaugh pose as stewards, and sail on the steamer Honorius back to Argentina.
• August 9, 1902: Place registers them at the Hotel Europa in Buenos Aires.
• August 15, 2902: Place and Longabaugh return to their ranch aboard the steamer SS Chubut.
• Early to late 1903: Parker's former lover Ann Bassett marries a rancher by the name of Henry Bernard, and shortly thereafter is arrested for rustling.
• Summer 1904: Place and Longabaugh sail again to the U.S. where the Pinkerton Detective Agency traced them Fort Worth, Texas and to the St. Louis World Fair, but failed to arrest them before they returned to Argentina.
• December 19, 1904: Place took part, along with Longabaugh, Parker and an unknown male, in the robbery of the Banco de la Nacion in Villa Mercedes, 400 miles west of Buenos Aires. Pursued by armed lawmen, they crossed the Pampas and the Andes and again into Chile.
• May 1, 1905: The trio sell the Cholila ranch, as once again the law was beginning to catch up with them. The Pinkerton Agency had known their precise address for some months, but the rainy season prevented their assigned agent, Frank Dimaio, from traveling there and making an arrest. Governor Julio Lezana issued an arrest warrant, but before it could be executed, Sheriff Edward Humphreys, a Welsh Argentine who was friendly with Parker and enamored of Place, tipped them off. The trio fled north to San Carlos de Bariloche, where they embarked on the steamer Condor across Lake Nahuel Huapi and into Chile. 
• June 30, 1906: At Place's request, Longabaugh accompanied her from Valparaiso, Chile, to San Francisco, California, where she apparently remained while he returned permanently to South America. 
• 1907: Place is living alone in San Francisco. There is no evidence that Longabaugh and Place ever saw one another again after leaving her there.
• July 31, 1909: A woman matching Place's description attempts to obtain a death certificate following Longabaugh's death in Bolivia so that she can settle his estate. She disappears from all historical records after that. With Longabaugh dead, Pinkerton's interest in her location wanes, and her trail goes cold.

There is still considerable debate over when Place's relationship with Longabaugh ended. Some claims indicate that she ended her relationship with Longabaugh and returned to the United States prior to his death. Other claims indicate that the two remained romantically involved, and that she simply tired of life in South America. By 1907, she was known to have been living in San Francisco, but after that, the trail runs cold.

After Longabaugh's death, some believe that she returned to New York City, while other theories indicate she moved back to Texas and started a new life there. A Pinkerton report indicates that a woman matching Place's description was killed in a shootout resulting from a domestic dispute with a man named Mateo Gebhart in Chubut, Argentina, in March 1922. Another report indicates she committed suicide in 1924 in Argentina, while yet another report indicates that she died of natural causes in 1966.

There have been various additional claims about her life after Longabaugh died. One claim is that she returned to her life as a schoolteacher, living the remainder of her life in Denver, Colorado, while another story claims she lived the remainder of her life teaching in Marion, Oregon. There are also various claims that she returned to prostitution, living out the remainder of her life in Texas, New York or California. However, none of these claims has any supporting evidence.