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.

Preston and Cassidy first encountered each other in Fremont County in 1891, when Cassidy was charged with horse theft and defended by Preston - unsuccessfully, as it turned out: ultimately, he was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment at the Wyoming State Penitentiary, then located in Laramie.

In 1895, Cassidy managed to set up a personal meeting at the prison with Wyoming Governor William Richards and requested a pardon. There is evidence that he promised in return to commit no further crimes in Wyoming. Richards agreed, and Cassidy was released early in 1896. Seven months later, he and two accomplices named Elzy Lay and Bub Meeks robbed the Montpelier Bank in Montpelier, Idaho, of some $7,000. 12 years and numerous bank holdups and train robberies later, Cassidy, along with Harry Longabaugh, (the “Sundance Kid”), was reported killed in a shootout with authorities in Bolivia.

Preston’s relationship with Cassidy has long been a controversial subject among historians. Though he had a long and distinguished career - ended only by his death in an automobile crash west of Granger in 1929 - he reportedly laundered money for Cassidy and said himself the two often had secret meetings at desert locations between Sweetwater County and Brown’s Park, along the Utah/Colorado border. It was also said that the two sometimes met at Boar’s Tusk, north of Rock Springs.

The article can be found online at

https://wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/outlaw-and-his-lawyer-butch-cassidy-and-douglas-preston

There are other articles related to Butch Cassidy at WyoHistory.org, including “Bub Meeks and a Wild Bunch Winchester” at      

https://wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/bub-meeks-and-wild-bunch-winchester . 

Meeks’s life after the Montpelier robbery was a litany of misfortune, as the article chronicles. His rifle is currently on exhibit at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum.

The museum is located at 3 E. Flaming Gorge Way in Green River. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and there is no charge for admission.