This is the fifth article in a seven-part series of stories surrounding the mystery of who robbed the Oak Saloon in 1910, running from June 18 through July 30.
The obscurity enfolding this tale has long implicated “Kid Parker” with the daring Oak Saloon holdup. Better known as Butch Cassidy, Robert LeRoy Parker was one of the most enterprising and successful outlaws in the Wild West.
According to the history books, the infamous Cassidy met his death in an ambush at San Vicente, Bolivia in 1909. The outcome of that shootout has been disputed by some historians, writers, and family descendants who claim he survived and returned to the United States and lived a law-abiding life under a new name.
Witnesses who were on shift when the hold up at the Oak took place described the bandit calling himself “Kid Parker” as about 30 years of age. Having been born in 1866, Robert LeRoy Parker would have been 44 years old at the time of the April robbery.
A little more than five weeks after the Oak was robbed, a 24-year-old “kid” was taken into custody in Ogden by Salt Lake County Deputies after a tip from a local pawnshop. The suspect pawned the revolver taken from the nightwatchman during the attempted robbery of the Layton National Bank on May 20. The .38 caliber Browning automatic pistol was easily recognized by its owner. The young man also pawned an expensive diamond ring stolen in the Clift House hold-up in Salt Lake City.
Credit: From Utah Digital Newspapers
William Albert Bringhurst, whose family home was in Taylorsville, had been under surveillance for several weeks before his apprehension on the first day of June. He was hurriedly transported from Ogden to the Salt Lake County jail where he was confined. Detectives there were convinced that Bringhurst, or a man much resembling him, had been the leader in numerous sensational crimes that had taken place outside Salt Lake, including the raid on the Oak on April 22.
After visiting with his son in his jail cell, Bringhurst’s father brushed away the tears gathering in his eyes and said: “William was reared on a farm until he reached manhood and was always a good boy. He tells me that he is not connected in any way with the robberies. I shall believe him until he is positively identified. He told me that he had never been in Park City except once, when he went near there with me, and that was when he was a little boy.”
The Bringhurst family was prominent in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ affairs and extremely active in Church circles. William’s grandfather, Samuel Bringhurst, traveled to Utah on the second wagon train to reach the Salt Lake Valley on September 29, 1847. He was a wagon maker and blacksmith. The family name had remained untarnished from that time. This was the first time that any member of the Bringhurst family had ever been in court. Though Bringhurst was in custody, his accomplice in the Layton affair as well as the Clift House and Oak holdup was still at large. We’ll meet him in part six.