Castle Gate, Utah

Well they tell me that I'm wanted
Yeah, I'm a wanted man
I'm a colt in your stable
I'm what Cain was to Abel
Mister catch me if you can 

“Blaze of Glory” (1990): Written and recorded by Jon Bon Jovi. Album: Blaze of Glory. Mercury Records. 

The history of Castle Gate cannot be told without mentioning famed outlaw Butch Cassidy.


Before I continue, I should mention two things: First, Butch Cassidy has become kind of a tall tale. Often the truth is mixed with half-truths (or all-out lies) and it’s hard to decipher which is which. For that reason, you can read this story on any number of websites and the facts are all different. (If you don’t believe me, look at the picture of the plaque below after you read this post to see the discrepancies.) Having said that, I have tried to make this as factual as possible, using all sources I have available.

Second, I realize that the Bon Jovi lyrics above are from the movie Young Guns II, which is about Billy the Kid NOT Butch Cassidy. Trust me, I did my best to find songs about Butch. However, there just are not any songs written about Butch Cassidy that would work for this post. Sure, I could use the Burt Bacharach-penned “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head”, which won the Best Song Oscar for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but I just can’t. It’s not that I don’t like the song, it’s just that I can’t imagine anyone in this day and age of being able to skip scenes, actually watches the scene where “Raindrops” is playing while Butch is riding around on a bike with Etta. It’s just awkward and so out of place in that otherwise fantastic film.

But I digress. Back to Castle Gate and Butch Cassidy.

Castle Gate began in about 1882 as a mining town. That year, the Pleasant Valley Coal Company (PVCC) mined about 87,500 tons of coal. Those numbers nearly doubled every five years until they were producing over 1,000,000 tons in 1900.

Obviously with that amount of coal production, money was rolling in. On April 21, 1897, a train from Salt Lake City rolled into town, carrying the payroll for PVCC. The company paymaster and two guards grabbed the three bags of money from the train - estimated between $8,000 and $9,000 - and headed towards the company office about 75 yards away.

That was when they were held up at gunpoint by a lone outlaw - Butch Cassidy. He took the largest bag from the paymaster. Meanwhile, a second outlaw, Elzy Lay, took another bag from a guard and the two outlaws hopped on their horses and rode off with an estimated $7,000.

Castle Gate officially incorporated in 1914. Ten years later - on March 8, 1924 - the town would make the news again when the Utah Fuel Company's Castle Gate Mine #2 exploded, killing 172 miners. It was the third-deadliest disaster in the history of coal mining in the United States at that time, and remains the tenth deadliest at present.