Old West Jail Cells, Butch Cassidy Lore, and more!

Butch Cassidy country: the old jail in Spring City, and the legends around it, fifteen minutes from camp

Fifteen minutes south of Manti-La Sal KOA Holiday is Spring City, a town where every building is on the National Register of Historic Places. Most people come for the stone houses and the walk down Main Street. Behind the museum, through a padlocked door, is the part most of them miss: the old town jail. Here's where it is, how to get in, and the Butch Cassidy and Wild Bunch stories that run through this valley.

Where it is

The Old City Hall at 39 North Main was built in 1893, and it holds the Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum: the belongings of the families who built the town, starting with James Allred's settlement in 1852 and the Danish immigrants who followed and gave the north end of town the name Little Denmark. Around the back of the property is a small outbuilding with a padlock on the door. Inside are two things: the old town jail cell, iron bars and a narrow cot, and a one-room schoolhouse set up the way the town's first classes were held, slates on the desks.

How to get in

The museum runs on its own schedule, kept by volunteers, so do not plan around a posted time. If the door is open, go in and ask at the desk for the jail key; the desk sits right in front of the little jail. Then walk around back, open the padlock, and you have the cell and the schoolhouse to yourselves. If the museum is closed, there is a sign on the front door with numbers to call, or come back later in the day. It is fifteen minutes from your site, so a second try costs you nothing. The museum sells a guide to the historic homes, and we carry the walking guide in our camp store too, so you can pick one up at check-in and make an afternoon of Main Street.

Local Lore

On a table by the cell is a book open to Butch Cassidy's page. It's there because the museum tells the story of Sanpete County in the outlaw years. There is a local story Spring City tells about a house nearby. The big house at 390 South 100 West belonged to Jacob Johnson, a Danish-born lawyer who opened his practice here in 1872 and sat as district judge for southeastern Utah from 1896 to 1905, the years the Wild Bunch was working. As the story goes, Cassidy slipped into town one night and, instead of any trouble, shared a beer with the judge on the bedroom balcony. When Johnson pointed out that the outlaw could kill him right there, Cassidy is supposed to have answered, "You could kill me, but they'll just send someone else." The balcony is still there, on a private home, so admire it from the sidewalk.

Six Wild Bunch stories within a day of camp

He's from here. Robert LeRoy Parker was born in Beaver, Utah in 1866 and grew up on his family's ranch near Circleville. He picked up the name Butch Cassidy from a cattle thief he worked with and a short stretch as a butcher. The cabin he grew up in still stands beside US-89 just south of Circleville, about two hours from camp, restored by the State of Utah, free, with old ranch equipment on the ground. It is an easy day: down Highway 89, the cabin, lunch on the way back, your own fire by dark.

The Castle Gate payroll. In April 1897, Cassidy and Elzy Lay took the Pleasant Valley Coal Company payroll at Castle Gate, in Price Canyon on the far side of the same plateau that stands above the campground. It was the Wild Bunch's one big holdup in Utah, done in daylight in front of the company office, and they rode south for Robbers Roost. The road over the top of that plateau is Skyline Drive, the ridge you see from your site.

The gang member from Ephraim. Twenty minutes south of camp, a Mormon bishop's son named Erastus Christiansen was born in 1864. He left as Matt Warner, rode with Cassidy's Robbers Roost gang, did his time, and came home to spend the rest of his life on the right side of the badge as a justice of the peace, a deputy sheriff and a night guard in Price.

Robbers Roost. The hideout was a stretch of canyon country in southeastern Utah where a posse could not follow and water was where you knew to find it. Sanpete Valley sat between the Roost and Cassidy's home country to the south, which is why so many towns along Highway 89 have a Butch story.

The ending Utah won't let go of. The record says he died in San Vicente, Bolivia in 1908 after a shootout with soldiers. His sister Lula Parker Betenson said otherwise: that he came home to Circleville for a visit in 1925 and lived out his life under another name. Historians mostly side with Bolivia. The family never did.

Our own story. KOA owner Brent's great-grandfather was from Panguitch, half an hour past Circleville. The way he told it, he was working in a field when a man passing through walked up, handed him a coin, and told him never to tell anyone he had seen him there. He swore the face was Robert LeRoy Parker's. Make of it what you will; in this part of Utah, every family has one.

Sleep in Butch's Hideout

Back at camp, each of our six Deluxe Cabins is named for a figure of the Old West with ties to Utah: Porter's Place (Porter Rockwell), Butch's Hideout (Butch Cassidy), Calamity's Cabin (Calamity Jane), Wyatt's Retreat (Wyatt Earp), Duke's Dive and Bill's Bungalow (Buffalo Bill). Each cabin has a gallery wall with photos of its namesake and a short bio, for the history buffs. Butch's Hideout has heat, a queen bed, a private bath, a kitchenette and a porch. Book it for a trip exploring the legends nearby.

Reserve

Manti-La Sal KOA Holiday is in Mount Pleasant, the next town north of Spring City, about an hour from Provo, open year-round. Six Deluxe Cabins, a lodge that sleeps seven, full-hookup RV sites and tent sites under the trees. Reserve online at koa.com/campgrounds/manti-lasal, or call the front desk at 435-660-4959. Manti-La Sal KOA Holiday, 2903 S 1700 E, Mount Pleasant, Utah 84647.