I hope you are having a Good Friday!
While Covid was going on these past two years I started to spend more time going back over Old West history books I had purchased and read over ten years ago. It was around ten years ago that I "burned" out of reading those types of books. Maybe I will explain that some other time, but it basically came down to the things that I had an interest in I had already read everything there was about it.
There was one other thing I did during the last two years that influenced me too. I was playing the video game Red Dead Redemption 2 (aka RDR2). I tend not to play many video games these days other than flight simulators, but I enjoyed the first game years back and wanted to play this new one. RDR2 deals with being in a gang that does a lot of train and bank robberies. It turns out that the game was slightly influenced by Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch. I was never really into that part of the Old West history, but decided to purchase a book or two about the Wild Bunch.
I was curious to read about one of the persons connected to this was William "Elzy" Lay. This blog entry is just a very brief bio entry on this person:
It turns out that Butch Cassidy's best friend was Elzy Lay. The more well known Sundance Kid partnership was much later. In 1889, Cassidy and Lay met up. When they were not working on cattle ranches they were robbing banks and other stickups. They ended up at the Robber's Roost in Utah, and the Hole-in-the-Wall in Wyoming which were two of the hangouts for the Wild Bunch gang.
In 1899, Lay along with Kid Curry, Sam Ketchum and Bill Carver robbed a train near Folsom, New Mexico. While it was a success, a posse was sent that caught up to them at an area known as Turkey Creek. The posse ambushed them, and Lay was shot while filling his canteen at the creek. However, it is disputed, but in the book citied below, Jeff Burton writes that during the gun battle that followed Lay regained consciousness. He then shot Sheriff Farr with his rifle which kills Farr. Lay, Curry, and Carver got away, but Sam Ketchum was injured. While in captivity Ketchum dies of his wounds.
Lay escaped to Eddy (aka Carlsbad), New Mexico, but was eventually captured. Sentenced to life in prison he ended up serving seven years due to his helping the warden and his good behavior at the prison.
I found it interesting that after he got out of prison he headed toward the border of Mexico to a spot where a cache of money he knew about was hidden. He then headed to the Wyoming/Colorado border. After a time, he went with his new wife Mary Calvert to Southern California where he supervised and worked on the All American Canal system in Riverside and Imperial Valley. He died in Los Angeles.
In one of my old books that lists gravesites I found out Elzy Lay's gravesite was at Forest Lawn in Glendale. After serving a weird week of Jury Duty a few months ago, I was headed to Los Angeles, and decided to see if my grave hunting skills still were working. I got to the cemetery a little before they opened and kind of laughed to myself. "What kind of person is early to a cemetery?" That week was just weird, and I was in that kind of mood. Also, it was a foggy morning which I don't mind if I visit a cemetery; it adds to the mood.
Anyways, the grave is on a slope, and it just a basic marker with the name on it:
For basic info check the Wikipedia entry on Elzy Lay HERE:
For a lot more scholarly detail on the Wild Bunch Gang you need to hunt this book down:
Burton, Jeff. The Deadliest Outlaws: The Ketchum Gang and the Wild Bunch. Denton, Tex.: University of North Texas Press, 2012
