The Sundance Kid was the alias of American outlaw Harry Longabaugh, a late‑19th‑century train and bank robber who rode with Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch in the Old West.

Quick Scoop: Who He Was

  • Real name: Harry Longabaugh (often spelled Longabaugh/Longbaugh).
  • Born: 1860s (commonly cited as 1867) in Pennsylvania, United States.
  • Why “Sundance Kid”? He reportedly got the nickname after being arrested for horse theft in Sundance, Wyoming.
  • Claim to fame: Notorious member of the Wild Bunch, a gang known for some of the most successful train and bank robberies in Western history.
  • Partnership: Best known as the partner of fellow outlaw Butch Cassidy; their duo was later mythologized by the 1969 film “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

Outlaw Career in Brief

  • He headed west as a teenager and worked as a ranch hand and horseman before turning fully to crime.
  • With Butch Cassidy and others in the Wild Bunch, he took part in multiple train and bank robberies in the 1890s–early 1900s.
  • He was reputed to be one of the fastest and most accurate gunfighters in the gang, which helped fuel his legend.

South America and Mysterious End

  • Around 1901, Sundance, Butch Cassidy, and Etta Place (Sundance’s companion) left the U.S., briefly passed through New York City, and set up as ranchers in Argentina.
  • They later returned to crime, robbing banks, trains, and mining operations across Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.

What happened at the end is still debated:

  • A common version says Sundance Kid was mortally wounded in a shootout with Bolivian cavalry near San Vicente (or a nearby mining area) around 1908–1909, with Cassidy dying alongside him.
  • Some alternative stories claim the pair were killed in Uruguay in 1911 during a bank robbery.
  • Other legends say Sundance escaped, returned quietly to the U.S. under an assumed name, and died years later in obscurity.

In modern pop culture, “Sundance Kid” is as much a legend as a man, blending documented history with decades of Western folklore and Hollywood storytelling.

TL;DR: The Sundance Kid was Harry Longabaugh, a skilled gunfighter and outlaw who robbed trains and banks with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch, later fled to South America, and likely died in a Bolivian shootout—though his exact fate remains a mystery.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.