The mystery began simply enough with her identity. Who was she? As
a young woman, she took the name, "Place," from the maiden name of
the mother of her lover, Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid), and
combined it with several first names, including "Mrs. Ethel Place."
The Pinkertons knew her as "Ethel," "Ethal," "Eva," and "Rita"
before finally settling on "Etta" for their wanted posters. After
Sundance introduced her to Robert Parker (Butch Cassidy), the three
joined the rest of their Wild Bunch gang and set off on a spree of
bank, stagecoach, and train robberies. With the law hot on their
heels, they rode up to Robber's Roost in southwestern Utah where
they laid low until word reached local authorities of their
whereabouts. On the run again, Place accompanied Longabaugh to New
York City where they purchased a lapel watch and stickpin at
Tiffany's before pausing to pose for the famed DeYoung portrait at
a Union Square photo studio on Broadway. On February 20, 1901, she
sailed with Butch and Sundance, posing as Etta's fictional brother
"James Ryan," aboard the British ship, Herminius, for Buenos Aires.
Settling there with the two outlaws on a ranch they purchased
jointly near Cholila in the Chubut Province of west-central
Argentina, they were granted 15,000 acres of adjacent land to
develop, 2,500 of which belonged to Place, who had the distinction
of being the first woman in Argentina to own real estate there. On
March 3, 1902, she and Longabaugh returned to New York City on the
SS Soldier Prince to visit her family and friends. On April 2, they
registered at a New York City rooming house before touring Coney
Island and visiting his family. They traveled to Dr. Pierce's
Invalid Hotel in Buffalo where she underwent an unspecified medical
treatment. They sought additional treatment in Denver before
returning to Buenos Aires from New York on July 10, 1902, aboard
the steamer, Honorius, where they posed as stewards. On August 9,
she registered herself and Sundance at the Hotel Europa in Buenos
Aires and six days later sailed with him aboard the steamer SS
Chubut to return to their Cholila ranch. She made another visit to
the states with Longabaugh in the summer of 1904 where the
Pinkertons traced them to Fort Worth, Texas, and to the St. Louis
World Fair but failed to arrest them before they returned to
Argentina. In early 1905, the trio sold their Cholila ranch as the
law closed in on them. The Pinkertons had known their whereabouts
for several months, but the rainy season had prevented their agents
from traveling there to make an arrest. Governor Julio Lezana
issued a warrant, but before it could be executed, Sheriff Edward
Humphreys, a Welsh Argentine who was friends with Parker and
enamored of Place, tipped them off. The trio fled north to San
Carlos de Bariloche where they embarked on the steamer Condor
across Lake Nahuel Huapi into Chile. By the end of that year, they
were back in Argentina. On December 19, 1904, Place, Longabaugh,
Parker, and an unknown male robbed the Banco de la Nacion in Villa
Mercedes, four hundred miles west of Buenos Aires. Pursued by armed
federales, they crossed the Pampas and the Andes and returned to
Chile. But Place had grown tired of life on the run and deeply
lamented the loss of their ranch and the promise of stability it
had held for her. In June 1906, Longabaugh accompanied her from
Valparaiso, Chile, to San Francisco, where she sought medical aid
and kissed him goodbye for the last time before he returned to
South America and infamy. As for Etta Place, her mystery had only
begun. And it would continue for another forty-six years before
finally being resolved.
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