Last of the Bandit Riders ... Revisited

Marvelous True Tales of the Old West

I loved this book. It is full of photographs, letters, maps, documents, and exciting recollections of nostalgic times in the Old West. It reads like a collection of tall tales but they are confirmed true events in history.

"A man who has had an outlaw past is never safe, no matter how straight he goes afterwards. That's the price he pays. Something out of his past life may raise up against him and wreck his life any time."

Willard Erastus Christiansen, alias Matt Warner, was born on April 12, 1864 in Ephraim, Utah and gives us his personal account of living the outlaw life when horses were the major mode of transportation. He tells of:

~ his adventurous exploits from cattle rustling to robbing banks to train holdups and dynamiting safes with outlaw friends that include Butch Cassidy and Tom McCarty

~ near death brushes with the law

~ marriage and children and attempts to leave the outlaw life and how past wrong deeds follow a man, making it nearly impossible to lead an honest life

~ navigating a rapidly changing world that includes railroads and telegraphs; where money and lawyers can save your skin better than a jailbreak can

~ dealings with corrupt lawmen and honest lawmen and what it takes to reform a bandit

~ touching relationships inside and outside the law

~ what became of his outlaw friends and most particularly, that Butch Cassidy did not die in South America but returned to the USA and lived a long life

~ of keeping a vow to live an honest life and doing so for nearly 40 years as "one of the best Deputy Sheriffs, police officers, and Justices of the Peace Carbon County has ever known."

This is a rousing, extraordinary look at life on the wrong side of the law during the late 1800's that stretches from Utah to Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. It is a marvelous piece of our regional history.