Treasure Tales and Treasure Stories About Idaho from the Archives of Lost Treasure Magazine

Wild Bunch loot

The Winnemucca, Nev., bank robbery was supposed to be Butch Cassidy's last North American crime. However, much of the loot ($32,200 worth) was in the form of gold coins, and Cassidy, being a professional, didn't like gold. Paper money and negotiable bank securities were much easier to transport and attracted less attention when spent. Harvey Logan didn't want to go to South America with Butch and Sundance. He persuaded Cassidy to attempt one last big job. This turned out to be the Great Northern Railroad robbery at Wagner, Mont. The take from this crime was $40,000 worth of negotiable bank notes. Afterward, Butch and Sundance made their way to New York and sailed for Buenos Aires.

According to the confessions of one of Fanny Porter's prostitutes, Harvey Logan and a few other gang members fled to Idaho after the Wagner robbery "with six or seven sacks filled with gold" in addition to their share of the securities. Fewer than six months later, Logan was captured in Tennessee. A suitcase belonging to Logan was found to be filled with paper money (profit from passing the negotiable bank notes) but not one dollar in gold. Perhaps this is the reason for stories of a Wild Bunch cache of gold coins buried along the creek north of the Stage Road between Wallace, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash., in Kootenai County.