1. Was Etta Place
ever in this place?
By DAVID N. BENSON
In 1901, Harry A. Place checked
into a New York boarding house
with his wife and brother-in-1aw.
To all appearances the Place party
consisted of three prosperous cattle
buyers from out West.
Their respectability was a sham.
Place didn’t dare let it be known
that his “brother-in-law” was really
the bandit Butch Cassidy, that he
himself was the Sundance Kid or
that his wife, Etta Place … well no
one is quite sure who she was.
There may be as few as three
known photographs of Etta Place,
but an anonymous collector of West-
ern memorabilia claims to have pro-
duced a fourth.
It’s going on the auction block at
Christie’s in New York on Tuesday.
It is valued at between $10,000 and
$15,000.
At the bottom of the picture, the
photographer left his mark:
F.B. Bradley
Auburn, Ind.
“I think it’s the find of a lifetime,
a rare photograph of Etta Place,”
said Frances Reust, a retired muse-
um curator.
“Number one, it doesn’t look like
her” counters Dan Buck, another
outlaw history researcher. “Num-
ber two, there is absolutely nothing
that links this photo to (Etta) Place.
“Basically what this is, is a pho-
to of a white woman from the turn
of century. There are probably tens
of thousands of women who look
like that, including my great grand-
mother who wore high-necked
blouses and leg-of-mutton sleeves.”
Before the gavel comes crashing
down, the photo is the property of
a Montana rancher. The rancher
agreed to extensive interviews, but
only under condition of anonymity.
He won’t say why he is selling the
photograph, other than for “person-
al reasons.”
He found the photograph on a
stroll in 1992 through a large an-
tiques mall in Denver. It was simply
labeled “Victorian Woman.”
“If I’d have looked the other way I
might have missed it,” he said.
Buying the photograph set him
back $8.50. His next move was to
take it the Museum of Northwest
Colorado in Craig, Colo.
“One day the owner of the picture
asked the director if we could may-
be help him with the photo identi-
fication. We get lots of old photos
and that’s one of the things we do,”
­Reust said.
At the Montana rancher’s sugges-
tion, she compared it with the most
famous existing photograph of Etta
Place, the DeYoung Photo.
The DeYoung Studio was where
Etta Place and the Sundance Kid
had their picture taken during their
stay in New York. Because the pho
Pro:
The woman in the Bradley photo bears
a remarkable resemblance to the Etta
Place in the DeYoung photo.
When a transparency of the Bradley
photo is laid over a copy of the DeYoung
photo, the comparision is remarkably sim-
ilar.
According to Frances Reust, a retired
museum curator and a portrait artist,
both women have naturally curly hair and:
“The jaw line, cheek bones and generally
underlying bone structure of the face ap-
pear the same. The way of the iris of the
eye sets above the lower lid; the fold of
the eye (the crease), the width between
the eyes, the line of the eyelid indents
above each eye next to the nose; ... the
similarity is remarkable.”
Con:
The woman in the Bradley photo
doesn’t look like Etta Place.
There is nothing to suggest that Etta
Place was ever in Auburn.
Advocates of the photo believe it was
taken around 1916. But the photographer
probably left Auburn by 1910.
The woman is dressed in the style of
1900, not 1916. Therefore it’s probably a
photo- graph of someone older than Etta
Place.
A tale of Auburn and the old West
Western history buffs are divided over whether a recently unearthed pho-
tograph taken in Auburn is really Etta Place, perhaps best known as the
Sundance Kid’s girlfriend. Christie’s will auction the photograph Tuesday,
where it is expected to fetch between $10,000 and $15,000. Here is a look at the
arguments of both sides.
Etta Place, pros and cons
From The Evening Star, Auburn, Indiana, Nov. 29, 1999, pages A1 and B5
Story begins on next page.

2. Was Etta Place
ever in this place?
By DAVID N. BENSON
In 1901, Harry A. Place checked
into a New York boarding house
with his wife and brother-in-1aw.
To all appearances the Place party
consisted of three prosperous cattle
buyers from out West.
Their respectability was a sham.
Place didn’t dare let it be known
that his “brother-in-law” was really
the bandit Butch Cassidy, that he
himself was the Sundance Kid or
that his wife, Etta Place … well no
one is quite sure who she was.
There may be as few as three
known photographs of Etta Place,
but an anonymous collector of West-
ern memorabilia claims to have pro-
duced a fourth.
It’s going on the auction block at
Christie’s in New York on Tuesday.
It is valued at between $10,000 and
$15,000.
At the bottom of the picture, the
photographer left his mark:
F.B. Bradley
Auburn, Ind.
“I think it’s the find of a lifetime,
a rare photograph of Etta Place,”
said Frances Reust, a retired muse-
um curator.
“Number one, it doesn’t look like
her” counters Dan Buck, another
outlaw history researcher. “Num-
ber two, there is absolutely nothing
that links this photo to (Etta) Place.
“Basically what this is, is a pho-
to of a white woman from the turn
of century. There are probably tens
of thousands of women who look
like that, including my great grand-
mother who wore high-necked
blouses and leg-of-mutton sleeves.”
Before the gavel comes crashing
down, the photo is the property of
a Montana rancher. The rancher
agreed to extensive interviews, but
only under condition of anonymity.
He won’t say why he is selling the
photograph, other than for “person-
al reasons.”
He found the photograph on a
stroll in 1992 through a large an-
tiques mall in Denver. It was simply
labeled “Victorian Woman.”
“If I’d have looked the other way I
might have missed it,” he said.
Buying the photograph set him
back $8.50. His next move was to
take it the Museum of Northwest
Colorado in Craig, Colo.
“One day the owner of the picture
asked the director if we could may-
be help him with the photo identi-
fication. We get lots of old photos
and that’s one of the things we do,”
­Reust said.
At the Montana rancher’s sugges-
tion, she compared it with the most
famous existing photograph of Etta
Place, the DeYoung Photo.
The DeYoung Studio was where
Etta Place and the Sundance Kid
had their picture taken during their
stay in New York. Because the pho-
Pro:
The woman in the Bradley photo bears
a remarkable resemblance to the Etta
Place in the DeYoung photo.
When a transparency of the Bradley
photo is laid over a copy of the DeYoung
photo, the comparision is remarkably sim-
ilar.
According to Frances Reust, a retired
museum curator and a portrait artist,
both women have naturally curly hair and:
“The jaw line, cheek bones and generally
underlying bone structure of the face ap-
pear the same. The way of the iris of the
eye sets above the lower lid; the fold of
the eye (the crease), the width between
the eyes, the line of the eyelid indents
above each eye next to the nose; ... the
similarity is remarkable.”
Con:
The woman in the Bradley photo
doesn’t look like Etta Place.
There is nothing to suggest that Etta
Place was ever in Auburn.
Advocates of the photo believe it was
taken around 1916. But the photographer
probably left Auburn by 1910.
The woman is dressed in the style of
1900, not 1916. Therefore it’s probably a
photo- graph of someone older than Etta
Place.
A tale of Auburn and the old West
Western history buffs are divided over whether a recently unearthed pho-
tograph taken in Auburn is really Etta Place, perhaps best known as the
Sundance Kid’s girlfriend. Christie’s will auction the photograph Tuesday,
where it is expected to fetch between $10,000 and $15,000. Here is a look at the
arguments of both sides.
Etta Place, pros and cons
From The Evening Star, Auburn, Indiana, Nov. 29, 1999, pages A1 and B5

3. tograph was taken in formal
dress and because the Sun-
dance Kid once said that he
married a woman in Texas,
the photograph is sometimes
called “The Wedding Photo-
graph.”
The Montana collector and
Reust laid the two photos next
to each other.
“We studied them for quite
a while. It’s my opinion it’s the
same woman,” Reust said.
In addition to her five years
as museum curator, she has
been a portrait artist, which
has given her good experience
in studying people’s faces.
With the aid of the software
program Adobe Photoshop,
Reust has taken Etta Place’s
picture from the DeYoung
photograph and enlarged it to
be the same size as the ques-
tioned photo. She also made a
transparency of the DeYoung
photo for comparison.
The similarities astonished
her. She compiled a long list of
ways the two photos were iden-
tical. (See “Etta Place, Pros
and Cons,” previous page.)
“Everyone who has seen the
transparencies has thought
they look alike,” she said.
“That doesn’t prove anything.
But they look enough alike to
be relatives — sisters at least.”
Reust’s work appears to
have carried great weight with
the Christie’s, which has been
conducting auctions of fine art
for more than 200 years.
According to the auction
catalog, Reust “has perfected
a technique which allows au-
thentication of this photograph
with undeniable evidence.”
(Repeated telephone calls to
Christie’s over the course of
several weeks did not produce
an on-the-record interview.)
+++
Lay the transparency of
the DeYoung photograph over
the disputed photograph, and
the two left eyes match almost
perfectly. The nostrils and lips
also line up.
On the downside, the right
eye in the transparency is fur-
ther off to the woman’s right.
The hairline in the DeYoung
photo is noticeably higher and
off to the woman’s right. ­Reust
cautions that discrepancy
could be accounted for by the
slight differences in head posi-
tion.
DeKalb County historian
John Martin Smith lines up
the transparency against the
DeYoung photo blowup.
“My layman’s opinion is
that they are the same per-
son,” Smith said.
But there is not much more
he can do.
He can look up Bradley in
his 1908 Auburn city directory.
There is a Frank Bradley
operating a photography and
music studio with someone
named Frank Fitch at 301 N.
Main. St.
But today 301 N. Main St. is
a parking lot.
Bradley apparently has no
relatives in the area. Appar-
ently he didn’t stay long. He’s
not listed in the 1910 telephone
directory.
He may have left town.
In her spare time, Joan
Hostetler is working on a di-
rectory of Indiana photogra-
phers from between 1841 and
1940. Her database contains
more than 4,000 names. Her
only reference to Bradley is an
ad appearing in the October
1908 issue of the St. Louis &
Canadian Photographer.
“For sale or trade;” the ad
reads, “I wish to trade my stu-
dio for another; ground floor,
in town of 7500, or will sell.
Will give reasons in letter. I
have a good place. Address F.
B. Bradley, Auburn, Ind.”
Perhaps “ground floor, in
town of 7500,” was what he
was shooting for rather than
what he had. In 1910 Auburn’s
population was closer to 3,500.
“It was pretty common for
photographers to be coming
and going during this time,”
said Hostetler, who lives in In-
dianapolis. “I imagine Bradley
was looking to trade up to a
bigger city. You would see that
a lot in ads in old photography
magazines. Sometimes they
would limit it to the Midwest,
but they were always trying to
get to a larger city.”
Another Indianapolis pho-
to historian is John Newman.
His database stops at the end
of the 19th century and it con-
tains no reference to Brad-
ley during that time. He also
checked the 1916 Indiana Ga-
zette, a listing of businesses in
the state. There is no reference
for a Bradley, but several oth-
er Auburn photographers are
listed.
+++
Here’s Dan Buck’s argu-
ment in a nutshell.
Everyone agrees that Etta
PIace was born around 1880.
The woman in the recently
discovered photo looks to be 30
or 40 years old. For her to be
Etta Place, that would mean
the photograph was taken
sometime between 1910 and
1920. (Christie’s estimate is
1916.) But even 1910 is too late,
if Bradley sold his studio in
1908 or 1909.
Even if Bradley were still
in Auburn, the next question
is fashion. The woman in the
photograph is dressed in the
style of 1900, not 1916.
Why would Etta Place dress
up in a way that went out of
fashion 10 years earlier? Ei-
ther way, Buck reasons, it just
doesn’t add up. The most likely
explanation: It’s not Etta Place
at all, but just an ordinary Au-
burn woman in her 30s or 40s
who had her picture taken be-
fore 1910.
In the course of his research
on this photo, Buck acquired
picturesof thefreshman­classes
of Auburn High School for the
years 1904, 1905 and 1910.
“You could look at these pic-
tures and say, ‘This is an entire
class of (Etta) Places,’ ” Buck
said. “Most of the women are
wearing high-necked ­blouses
and leg-of-mutton sleeves.
Many of the others have the
brooch watch. You can circle
any one of these young women
and say this is (Etta) Place.”
These objections mean lit-
tle to Reust, especially the one
about fashion. “We have pho-
tographs in the museum that
show the same typical dress
on a woman in 1911 or 1912,”
she said.
As for Bradley selling his
studio, where’s the proof?
“Put up for sale doesn’t
mean sold.” she said.
Even if Bradley did sell,
that information may be of lit-
tle use, Hostetler points out.
“Sometimes if he sold out,
whoever bought it might have
used the existing stock,” she
said. “Sometimes a new pho-
tographer would get a stamp
that would have his name and
the words ‘successor to’ and
stamp it over the previous
photographer’s stock.”
Alternatively, Bradley
could have left Auburn, taken
his stock with him and used it
up elsewhere. “I have always
suspected photographers did
that but I have never been able
to prove it.” Hostetler said.

4. +++
Buck, who has written nu-
merous articles on Western
history, is not alone in his
doubts. Donna B. Ernst, au-
thor of “Sundance, My Uncle,”
and Richard Patterson, author
of the 1998 biography “Butch
Cassidy” also have questioned
the photo’s authenticity.
The anonymous collector
has his own opinion.
“Of all the so-called histori-
ans out there,” he said. “I put
my money on Larry Pointer.
He is a meticulous research-
er and does not have foregone
conclusions and/or bend the
facts to suit his bias.”
Pointer, the author of the
1977 book “In Search of Butch
Cassidy,” lives in retirement
in Billings, Mont.
“I think there are a lot of
possibilities with this photo,”
Pointer said. “but I think (the
anonymous collector) is jump-
ing the gun. He needs to build
a chain of evidence to prove
this photo is authentic.
“There is some physical re-
semblance. Frances Reust has
done some computer work and
there are some good positive
indications.
“I would encourage him to
be more patient and to pay a
lot of attention to research and
get lots of feedback before try-
ing to get a profit on a photo.
“He’s jumping into a pool
of sharks and man-eating fish.
Those people in outlaw and
lawman history will eat him
alive if he doesn’t have enough
documentation. There is never
enough documentation to sat-
isfy everyone — I know — but
I think it’s premature.”
+++
Of course, documentation is
going to be hard to get. About
Etta Place there are only two
facts anyone is sure of.
Her first name wasn’t Etta.
Her last name probably wasn’t
Place.
She signed the New York
boarding house register as
Ethel Place, Ernst discovered.
She and Buck have mounted a
crusade to refer to her by that
first name.
Place is an alias often used
by the Sundance Kid. It was
his mother’s maiden name.
The Sundance Kid’s real name
was Harry Longabaugh. Most
outlaw historians believe Etta
Place acquired her surname
by posing as the Sundance
Kid’s wife, although a few
claim she was a cousin on his
mother’s side.
As to her true identity, there
are more theories than histori-
ans. There are also more theo-
ries than facts.
Here are some facts: Butch
Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and
several other outlaws belonged
to a gang that would later be
called the Wild Bunch. The
gang robbed several banks and
express trains in the late 1890s.
The total haul is estimated at
$250,000. As the 19th century
came to a close, however, the
West was becoming tamer. The
old hideouts were disappear-
ing, the lawmen were getting
better and many of the Wild
Bunch were dead or in prison.
Hounded by the Pinkerton
Detective Agency, Butch and
Sundance decided to start
life anew in South America.
That’s what brought them to
the boarding house in New
York. Some time later the trio
set sail for Argentina, hoping
to make a new life for them-
selves as honest ranchers.
Although established in Ar-
gentina, Sundance and Etta
Place did make several return
visits to the United States
during this time. But the world
was smaller than even the trio
realized. By 1904, they learned
the Pinkertons were on their
trail and realized that not even
Argentina was safe. They fled
first to Chile, then to Bolivia.
What happened in Bolivia is
a matter of dispute.
Buck believes Cassidy and
Sundance died in Bolivia in a
November 1908 shootout with
the authorities. That’s the
theme of “Digging Up Butch &
Sundance,” a book written by
his wife, Anne Meadows.
Pointer believes Cassidy
returned to the United States
and lived out his life under an
assumed name in Spokane,
Wash. That’s the theme of his
book, “In Search of Butch Cas-
sidy.”
As for Etta Place, Buck dis-
covered a reference to her in
a police file in Argentina. The
report, which is second-hand,
said that Etta Place was last
known to be in San Francisco
in 1906.
Why did she leave Butch
and Sundance?
“She may have had a fight
with Sundance or she may
have decided she couldn’t take
it any more,” Buck said. “My
guess is she married again and
deep-sixed her past.”
+++
Christie’s wasn’t the first
choice of the anonymous col-
lector. He said he took it to
another auction house. “They
laughed at me because they
said it had no provenance,” he
said. Provenance is the chain
of events in which an object
travels from its original owner
to the current collector.
To the photo’s doubters,
Etta Place in Auburn is out of
place.
“To the best of my knowl-
edge she was never there. I
have never seen any indica-
tion she spent any time there,”
said Ernst, who has been re-
searching the Sundance Kid
for 20 years.
“No provenance, I agree.”
Reust said. “Nobody knew her
parents or her real name.”
“People who talk about
provenance are missing the
boat,” the Montana rancher
said. “The question isn’t ‘How
was this photo taken in Au-
burn, Indiana?’ but, ‘How did
a photo taken in Auburn, Indi-
ana, make it to Denver?’ ”
Reust has a theory.
In Denver at the turn of the
century, there lived a fami-
ly named Magor. This family
knew and was friends with
Butch Cassidy, the Sundance
Kid and other members of his
gang.
When one of the Magor
sisters died in 1975, she had a
copy of the DeYoung photo-
graph in her possession. So if
Etta Place or Sundance had
given the Magor family a copy
of the DeYoung photo, perhaps
Etta sent her a copy of the pho-
to in Auburn as well.
Or perhaps Etta lived in
Denver after 1907, Reust rea-
sons.
+++
The Montana rancher has a
pet theory about Butch Cassi-
dy, the Sundance Kid and Etta
Place.
He would like to keep it a se-
cret, but he just can’t do it.
“If any two of them were
alive then they would meet,”
he said, giving the game away.
If Etta Place was in Auburn
then almost certainly either
Cassidy or the Sundance Kid
were here too, his thinking
goes.

5. It’s a whole new avenue for
research.
Reust plans a research trip,
probably next spring.
She’ll be on familiar turf.
Reust is originally from
Peru and attended Peru High
School. She left Indiana in ei-
ther 1958 or 1959, when she
turned 18.
In the meantime, she would
like to hear from anyone with
any information about the
photo. You can reach her at the
museum, toll free at (877) 825-
6360. Just ask for director Dan
Davidson and he will pass the
message along.
Buck won’t be coming to
Auburn. In his mind there’s
nothing to research.
“What I want to know, is
who is that woman in the pho-
tograph?” Buck said. “The best
thing that could happen is for
someone to step forward and
say, “ ‘That’s my great-grand-
mother or that’s my great
aunt.’ ”
All right, all you local gene-
alogy buffs:
Do you anything about this
mysterious woman?