Etta Place, also known as "Mrs. Sundance Kid"

Etta Place is a mystery to history.  There are very few hard facts about her early or later years.  What we do know is that Etta Place was a beautiful woman who fell in love with an outlaw.  She had ties to prostitutes in the state of Texas, such as Madam Fannie Porter of San Antonio, but it is not known for certain whether Etta was a member of the frail demimonde.  Due to her unusual attractiveness of the times (late 19th century/turn of the century), many historians have conjectured that she must have been a schoolteacher or a maid, rather than a whore.  Although running off with the Wild Bunch Gang (the infamous one run by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) was not the most ladylike of decisions.  Before Paul Newman and Robert Redford immortalized the Wild Bunch on the big screen, they were already legendary.  Even during their heyday, they never robbed or molested the passengers on the trains they robbed, which garnered them a reputation for outlaw chivalry.  A fascinating and unusual aspect of the Wild Bunch Gang is the existence of pictures.  The whole gang posed together for professional pictures and there exist some of Etta and Sundance together too.  These pictures would later lead to their downfall, but they give historians a nice picture into what outlaws looked like (However, I feel these may be unrepresentative, as Etta was very beautiful and most of the gang members handsome, strange to me for such an occupation).

Etta and Sundance lived for a time as husband and wife although there is no proof that they ever legally married.  After things began to heat up stateside, Butch and Sundance decided to head down to South America, with Etta in tow.  Butch referred to them as the "little family of three."  Of course, most people know the legend that Butch and Sundance met their end in a hail of bullets in South America, but nothing is known about the ultimate fate of Etta Place.  Even the fate of Butch and Sundance is called into question by some, but Etta simply disappears.  She was never caught by the Pinkertons or US Marshalls.  What happened to her once they reached South America remains unclear.  Although no one knows the exact relationship she shared with the men, it has been credited to Butch as saying, "She was the best housekeeper on the Pampas, but she was a whore at heart."  Most biographers believe that she returned to the United States around 1907, although this is unsubstantiated.  Some say she returned to New York suffering from a venereal disease, some believe she lived a quiet life as a schoolteacher, but the most absorbing legend is one that says she moved back to Fort Worth and died in a boarding house she owned and operated under the name Eunice Gray.

No matter what the truth of Etta Place's fate, she was a fascinating and mysterious woman who threw her lot in with legendary and notorious men, and found everlasting notoriety herself by doing so. (Picture below is of Etta Place and the Sundance Kid)