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.

Fannie Porter

Fannie Porter was born in England on 12 February 1873 and traveled to America with her family around 1874. By the age of 20, she had started her own brothel, and became extremely popular for her cordial and sincere attitude.

She chose only the most attractive young women as her girls and required that they practice good hygiene and an immaculate personal appearance. Her brothel was located at the corner of Durango and San Saba Streets.

By 1895, her brothel in San Antonio, Texas was one of the most popular of the Old West. It had by that time become known as a frequent stop off for outlaws on the run from the law. Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Kid Curr, and other members of the Wild Bunch gang frequented her business.

One of Fannie's girls, Della Moore, became the girlfriend of Kid Curry, remaining with him until her arrest for passing money from one of his robberies. She was arrested, but acquitted, eventually returning to work for Porter once again. Another, Lillie Davis, became involved with outlaw and Wild Bunch member Will "News" Carver. Lillie later claimed she had married Carver in Fort Worth prior to his death in 1901, but there are no records to verify the alleged marriage. It is possible that the Sundance Kid and his girlfriend Etta Place, whose true identity and eventual disappearance from history has long been a mystery, first met while she worked for Porter, but that has never been confirmed. Wild Bunch gang member Laura Bullion is also believed to have at times worked for Porter between the years of 1898 and 1901.

Fannie was well respected for her discretion, always refusing to turn in a wanted outlaw to the authorities. She also was known for being extremely protective of her girls, insisting that any who mistreated them never return to her brothel. She generally employed anywhere from five to eight girls, all ranging in age from 18 to 25, and all of whom lived and worked inside her brothel. Her business was not only popular with outlaws of the day, but also with lawmen, and she made sure that any lawmen who entered received the best treatment. William Pinkerton, of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, was said to have frequented her brothel.

By the early 20th century, the tide had begun to turn against active, openly operating brothels. Eventually, Fannie retired, and faded from history. It's not known where she went following her retirement, but most agree that she retired semi-wealthy. Some stories indicate that she married a man of wealth, some indicate she retired into seclusion, while others indicate she returned to England. None of those are confirmed. Later rumors indicated that she lived until 1 January 1940, when she was killed in a car accident in El Paso, Texas though that report has not been confirmed.