The history of the outlaws' Patagonia ranch, what is left of the cabin today, and how to visit it from Cholila.
In 1901, the two most wanted outlaws in America disappeared from the United States and reappeared in a quiet valley in Argentine Patagonia. The cabin where Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place lived still stands just outside the town of Cholila, about thirty minutes from our lodge. If you have seen it mentioned on Atlas Obscura or in a guidebook and wondered whether it is worth the detour, here is what is actually out there.
Planning a Trip to the Valley?
The Story
Butch Cassidy was born Robert LeRoy Parker. The Sundance Kid was born Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, and took his nickname from the town of Sundance, Wyoming, where he served jail time as a teenager for horse theft. Together they led the Wild Bunch, the most successful train and bank robbing outfit of the closing years of the American West. The pair became household names worldwide through the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, which is why travelers still come looking for this valley.
The Wild Bunch in Fort Worth, 1900. The Sundance Kid is seated at left, Butch Cassidy at right. Public domain.
They arrived in Argentina in 1901 after fleeing the Pinkertons, along with Etta Place. They settled land in the Cholila valley and ran a working ranch with cattle, sheep, and horses. The cabin was the main house of that ranch, the home they lived in and worked from.
By most accounts they lived openly here as respected ranchers, entertained neighbors, and even hosted the territorial governor. Cassidy lived under the name Santiago Ryan, and the Sundance Kid and Etta Place as Mr. and Mrs. Place. In a letter written from Cholila in 1902, Cassidy described finally settling down.
Butch Cassidy's 1894 prison photograph, Wyoming Territorial Prison, Laramie. Public domain.
By 1905, with detectives closing in, they sold up and moved on. By most accounts the Cholila years were the longest stretch of settled, lawful life either man had as an adult.
What Is There Today
A low wooden cabin of hand-cut timber sits in a pasture with the Andes behind it, weathered but standing. It is one of the few physical traces of the gang's South American years anywhere.
The site has no formal visitor operation: no ticket office, no staff, and no signage to speak of. Conditions at informal sites like this change without notice, so treat any visit as a courtesy, leave everything as you found it, and ask in town in Cholila if anything looks uncertain.
How to Find It
The cabin sits just off Provincial Route 71 about ten kilometers from the center of Cholila, roughly a fifteen minute drive from town and about thirty minutes from La Pilarica. There are no facilities at the site, no food, no restrooms, so plan it as a stop rather than a destination. The turn is easy to miss; the Google Maps pin for the cabin is accurate.
Making a Half Day of It
Pair the cabin with the town of Cholila itself, a genuine working Patagonian town rather than a tourist stop, and with the northern entrance of Los Alerces National Park at Lago Rivadavia, twenty minutes further down Route 71, where the lake sits in old-growth forest and the water is an unreasonable shade of blue. Cabin, town, and lake make an easy, unhurried half day.
The Rest of the Valley
The outlaws chose this valley for the same reasons people come now: it is beautiful, remote, and quiet, and the rivers are full of trout. If one of you fishes and one of you does not, this is the kind of thing the non-fishing half of the trip is made of. We are happy to point guests in the right direction.
Plan Your Patagonia Trip
Photo: Beatriz Nuñez, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.