Hole-in-the-Wall Gang

The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang was a gang in the American Wild West, which took its name from the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass in Johnson County, Wyoming, where several outlaw gangs had their hideouts.

Description

The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang was not simply one large organized gang of outlaws but rather was made up of several separate gangs, all operating out of the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass, using it as their base of operations. The gangs formed a coalition, each planning and carrying out its own robberies with very little interaction with the others. At times, members of one gang would ride along with other gangs, but usually each gang operated separately, meeting up only when they were each at the hideout at the same time.

Geographically, the hideout had all the advantages needed for a gang attempting to evade the authorities. It was easily defended and impossible for lawmen to access without detection by the outlaws concealed there. It contained an infrastructure, with each gang supplying its own food and livestock, as well as its own horses. A corral,

The encampment operated with a steady stream of outlaw gangs rotating in and out, from the late 1860s to the early 20th century. However, by 1910, very few outlaws used the hideout, and it eventually faded into history. One of the cabins used by Butch Cassidy still exists today, and it was moved to Cody, Wyoming, where it is on public display.

In popular culture

The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang has been featured in various works, including:

• Western fiction films:
  • The Three Outlaws (1956), starring
    Alan Hale Jr as the Sundance Kid, and depicting the duo's exploits (with Wild Bunch member William "News" Carver as the third outlaw of the title)^[4]
  • heroine of the title) and Lee Marvin
    , in a gang who rob a train, providing adequate motivation for an expedition against not only them but everyone at Hole-in-the-Wall, forcing the remnant of aged outlaws there to eject her from the refuge
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, film dramatization of the historical outlaws
• "The Good, the Bad, and the Tigger", animated parody (in the series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh) of the historical and dramatized gangs, with outlaws "Pooh" and "Tigger" being referred to as the "Hole in the Head Gang"
• In the
  gold bullion
  and disguising them as bricks in gang-owned buildings.
• In Outlawed, a 2021 alternate history novel by Anna North,^[5] a band of barren women come together to form the Hole in the Wall Gang, led by The Kid, determined to create a safe haven in a world where barren women are hanged as witches.
• In Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, the Hole in the Wall Gang are the main antagonists of the second mission in the "Shadow" (Lakota) campaign. In the mission, they operate more like an army than an outlaw gang, attacking not only with outlaw units but also hussars and dragoons.