He Rode With Butch and Sundance: The Story of Harvey “Kid Curry” Logan, by Mark T. Smokov, University of North Texas Press, Denton, 2012, $29.95
Opening his biography of the outlaw known as Kid Curry, Mark Smokov writes, “Harvey Logan…has generally been portrayed as a cold-blooded killer, without any compassion or conscience, possessed of limited intelligence.” The author then proceeds to shatter that myth with mesmerizing detail in this definitive biography of a member of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, aka the Wild Bunch.
Born in Iowa in 1867, Curry came of age in Kansas City, Mo., and ultimately moved with an older brother to cowboy in Montana Territory. There Curry killed a neighboring rancher and fled, turning to rustling and, eventually, robbing banks and trains. Smokov argues that Curry wasn’t just a member of the Wild Bunch’s “Train Robbers’ Syndicate” but its head, adding that no solid evidence even links Butch Cassidy to any train robbery. Finally, he argues persuasively that Curry indeed was killed after a train robbery outside Parachute, Colo., in 1904. He Rode With Butch and Sundance is one of the most revealing offerings to Hole-in-the-Wall Gang history published in years.
Johnny D. Boggs
