An Outlaw and His Rock Springs Lawyer

Photo No. 1 - Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, inmate number 187, Wyoming State Penitentiary

Photo No. 2 - Douglas Preston and associates at the Sweetwater County Courthouse, Green River, in 1898 or 1899. Preston is marked Number 4. Number 16 is Judge David H. Craig. The table and the courtroom balustrade are part of the collection of the Sweetwater County Historical Museum, though they are not currently on exhibit.

Photo No. 3 - Douglas Preston maintained his law office in this building at the corner of North Front and J streets in Rock Springs, Wyoming. At different times an opera house, a labor temple, and the Grand Theater, it currently houses a tattoo parlor.

(Sweetwater County, Wyo. - January 21, 2025)     A new article on WyoHistory.org, the online platform of the Wyoming Historical Society, tells the story of two men famous (or infamous) in Rock Springs and Sweetwater County history.

“The Outlaw and His Lawyer: Butch Cassidy and Douglas Preston,” by Dick Blust of the Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River, chronicles the interwoven careers of outlaw Robert Leroy Parker - better known by his alias, Butch Cassidy - and his friend, Rock Springs attorney Douglas A. Preston.

Though he was a member of Wyoming’s Constitutional Convention of 1889, a signer of Wyoming’s State Constitution, a member of the Wyoming House of Representatives, and served two terms as Wyoming’s attorney general, Preston is best remembered as the lawyer for one of the Old West’s most well-known bandits.

Read more: An Outlaw and His Rock Springs Lawyer