Butch Cassidy and Winnemucca, Nevada

 As a child, I often got blamed for things going wrong around the house. Of course, many times it was me that caused those things going wrong but sometimes I was not the culprit, at least I pleaded so.

“Johnny,” my grandmother would say. “Did you put a snake in the clothes washer?”

My loving Nana would always say clothes washer instead of washing machine. Not sure there is a difference but sounds like there should have been.

“Well,” I would reply, while bowing my head in deep thought before answering. 

Nana was pure Irish and knew a lie when one came flying at her. The Irish – they know how to embellish stories and know when those stories are being embellished.

Though I am sixty-five percent Irish, I use only pure research when writing my articles – be it a faraway chance when this writer would ever embellish a story.

I know this to be true when I happened upon a leprechaun and a Sasquatch having lunch one fine afternoon in a dell in the sweet green grasses near Dublin. They both finished their pints and said in tandem – ‘You be the most truthful person we ever have met, laddie.”

Whatever story I concocted at the time did not fly with my Nana. I had to remove a very wet snake from the washer and the snake was not in a good mood at the time.

“No more made-up stories from you,” she said.

I nodded, knowing it was in my blood to make a dull story a wee bit more interesting if I could.

The point of these nearly two hundred and fifty words?

Well, sometimes people will claim a person may have done something when they really have not.

And that is not a bunch of blarney.

A perfect example, on September 19, 1900, three men walked into the First National Bank of Winnemucca, Nevada at the corner of Fourth Street and Bridge Street and carried out a risky midday robbery.

Scene of the crime

They held guns on the patrons and workers. They swore, spit and then one brandished a knife as if the guns were not enough to carry out their daring raid.

It was rumored that one of the outlaws held his hands up during the robbery and said, “Really, a knife, we have six-shooters pointed at everyone. A little overkill, wouldn’t you say?”

One of the other robbers growled, “Makes us look fierce and dangerous.”

The third robber shrugged his shoulders, “Probably should have also thought of masks when we made these plans. Don’t you think?”

“Well, shoot,” one robber said. “No, I didn’t mean that!”

After a bit of hesitation and the threat of great bodily harm, George S. Nixon, the cashier, finally opened the vault and handed over nearly thirty-thousand dollars in gold coins. That would be well over a million dollars today.

Quite a haul for any group of fellows.

The robbery was then blamed on the notorious but well-liked robber, Butch Cassidy, and his Hole in the Wall Gang.

This was where truth sometimes is hidden in a bit of fiction.

Stately Courthouse - the hangings happened out back

The city of Winnemucca was named after Chief Winnemucca who lived in the area in the 19th century. He was a member of the Northern Paiutes. The Chief received his moniker when some early travelers came through what would be later known as Humboldt County in Nevada and saw him wearing only one moccasin.

Winnemucca is a loose translation meaning one moccasin – sort of like what probably happened to the Chief’s lost moccasin.

An interesting point in the story is that Sarah Winnemucca, the Chief’s daughter, later became an important advocate for the Native Americans living in and around the county. It was she who had the United States government begin to treat the Paiute and Shoshone tribes with more respect, offering education to all who desired it.

Sarah was also the first Native American to have her autobiography published, detailing her life as a daughter to a chief, working as an interpreter, a scout and messenger for the United States Army.

In fact, the autobiography has been referred to as, ‘one of the most enduring ethno-historical books written by an American Indian’ according to the 1983 Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology.

Gold was discovered not far from Winnemucca in the late 1860s bringing forth thousands of miners swarming to the hills and mountains not far from what would become the capital of Humboldt County.

In September of 1868, the Central Pacific Railroad arrived and in October of that year, it became part of the of the transcontinental railroad system.

Soon immigrants from all over started to arrive to this hilly landscape which happened to be perfect for raising sheep. 

Basques, the immigrants who arrived from northern Spain and southern France, moved into Winnemucca in the mid-19th-century and worked as sheepherders. Many became very successful and expanded their enterprises to the point that modern day Winnemucca hosts one of the largest annual Basque festivals in the United States, known as Euskal jajak.

So, with the town of Winnemucca growing quickly from the gold discoveries, the railroad and all the immigrants making their way across the Great Basin, bank robbers realized the local bank would probably have gobs of gold just waiting to be stolen.

There was and it was stolen on that summer day in 1900.

A short time later, Butch Cassidy and his gang were blamed – but there was an important issue missing. Butch was not there on the date of the robbery.

Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall Gang

Though Cassidy was known for bank robberies, his best-known antics leaned more toward train robbing.

It is rumored that Butch once said, “I like banks but blowing up mail cars on a train is a lot more fun. In fact, I bet that sixty-some years from now someone will make one of those moving pictures shows about me blowing the heck out of one of those mail cars.”

When the First National Bank of Winnemucca was robbed, Cassidy was nearly six hundred miles away in Tipton, Wyoming. He was planning a train robbery, which took place on August twenty-ninth of 1900, and he got away with fifty-thousand dollars in gold.

Time travel had not been invented yet in 1900, so unless Cassidy robbed a train and high-tailed to Winnemucca, the chances he was involved in the bank heist is a little hard to believe.

But Butch’s name is forever etched into Winnemucca’s history. Of course, perhaps the three men who did rob the bank may have been a part of the Hole in the Wall Gang

As the Sundance Kid may have said, “Yes, we were a gang but kind of a loosie-goosy kind of gang. We did things together and sometimes did things on our own”. 

To this day the three men’s identity is still a mystery, and the gold has never been found or spent, according to research.

Winnemucca is a great destination, as Laureen and I found out. The downtown area feels as though the visitor has stepped back in time and reliving what life was like at the turn of the twentieth century. Minus the bank robberies.

We walked up and down the streets taking in all the sights. The huge, beautiful Humboldt County Courthouse stands majestically on a high hill overlooking downtown Winnemucca.

A large convention center is within walking distance and hosts various events each year for locals and visitors alike.

View looking west across downtown Winnemucca 

Winnemucca is also home to the Buckaroo Hall of Fame and has a wonderful Heritage Museum to peruse.

Some of the largest events held in this modern but slow-paced city, besides the Euskal jajak, is the annual Ranch Hand Rodeo, the Run-A-Mucca Motorcycle Rally, the Tri-County Fair and Stampede, and the I Am Going Run the Hecka Out of the Way of the Stampede Event.

For those travelers looking for an adult libation, a visit to the Butch Cassidy’s Hole in the Wall Bar on Bridge Street is a must.

And for those more adventurous souls, there are dozens of ghost towns from the old mining days in Humboldt County just waiting to be visited.

There is Camp McGarry, Camp Winfield Scott, Jumbo, and Willow Point, just to name a few and the best part they are all an easy drive from Winnemucca.

What a better day than to visit historical sites and then return for the evening and perhaps have a great Basque meal while tossing back a glass of Txakoli.

Of course, when visiting a ghost town or any other historical site be careful where you walk and leave the place as you found it, so others may enjoy it in the future.

There are some real dodo-heads who don’t follow that advice and ruin everything – don’t be one of them.

As we drove away from Winnemucca, I turned to Laureen and said, “I liked Winnemucca. Did you like Winnemucca?”

She nodded. “Yes, but you just like to say Winnemucca.”

It was true, but I truly enjoyed our first jaunt through Winnemucca.

For more information: http://www.winnemucca.com/