Castle Gate: Coal Town and Butch Cassidy's Heist

Castle Gate was a coal mining company town in Carbon County, Utah, named for the dramatic sandstone pillars that flanked the Price River canyon at its entrance. The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad reached the canyon in eighteen eighty-six and the Pleasant Valley Coal Company opened mines that drew workers from across Europe and the American West. On April twenty-first, eighteen ninety-seven, Butch Cassidy and two members of the Wild Bunch rode into Castle Gate on payday and robbed the Pleasant Valley Coal Company paymaster of roughly seven thousand dollars in gold and silver, then rode out before anyone recovered from the shock.

It was one of the cleanest robberies of Cassidy's career. Castle Gate's mining operations continued until nineteen seventy-four, when the town was demolished and the site cleared for coal-loading facilities. The famous sandstone gate pillars were destroyed by highway construction; only photographs and the Butch Cassidy legend remain.