MONTPELIER — The infamous outlaw cowboy Butch Cassidy, with a wry smile and satchel of silver dollar coins, now sits on a bench in Heritage Park, forever immortalizing the Wild West gunslinger in bronze.

While only a footnote in his long-tenured criminal career, Cassidy's crime in Montpelier is well remembered to this day by its townsfolk.

On Aug. 13, 1896, Cassidy and fellow "Wild Bunch" gang members William Ellsworth "Elzy" Lay, Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan and Bob Meeks robbed a bank in Montpelier, escaping with roughly $7,000. Shortly after, Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, or "The Sundance Kid," would join in the nefarious escapades.

Despite an untimely demise at the age of 42, Cassidy, nearly 130 years later, can rest and revel in his small-town Idaho riches after he was immortalized as a bronze statue only a stone's throw away from the site of his bank robbery over a century ago.

The statue showcases Cassidy slumped in a confident cross-legged pose, fiddling with a silver dollar coin in one hand and grasping a satchel of his stolen bank goods in the other. Across his face is drawn a confident smirk, and on each side of him, he invites visitors to stop and spend a moment in repose and reflection.

The life-sized statue, created by internationally recognized sculptor Gary Lee Price, sits in Heritage Park just two doors down from the building where Cassidy and his gang robbed the Bank of Montpelier, which has since been transformed into the Butch Cassidy Museum. The piece marks the latest addition to a park that has become the centerpiece of the city's downtown revitalization efforts.

Heritage Park takes its name from six murals depicting chapters of Montpelier's history, one of which recounts the bank robbery and its place in local folklore. According to Steve Allred, president of the Montpelier Community Foundation, the space was little more than an overgrown lot before the community decided to make it the anchor of a broader effort to revitalize the business district.

Allred said organizers began working with Price roughly six years ago to bring the sculpture to Montpelier, his hometown. Price altruistically covered a portion of the statue's expenses himself after his production costs were met, a notable gift to the community that reared him.

The Heritage Park project was conceptualized following a $500,000 grant from the Idaho Department of Commerce, secured before the pandemic to help redevelop Montpelier's downtown business district. That grant was spent on the city's broader downtown improvements.

Separately, the Montpelier Community Foundation raised close to $90,000 specifically for the park itself, which included the murals, a covered concert stage and landscaping. The park's final phase, a set of public restrooms, is currently under construction.

The sculpture was unveiled with a community celebration that included a concert on the park's covered stage, drawing about 80 attendees.

Rather than depicting Cassidy holding a weapon, Price chose to soften the sculpture's tone. According to The News-Examiner, Price replaced the gun in his early designs with an 1896 silver dollar to shift the piece's emphasis toward something lighter.

Price also designed the bench format intentionally, as many of his works invite people to sit beside them rather than simply view them from a distance, in keeping with his mantra of lifting the human spirit through sculpture.

"I hope people can look at my work, smile, sit beside it, touch it, and have a positive experience," Price said. "Art heals."

Allred acknowledged that the celebration of a bank robber draws occasional pushback, but described the piece as a nod to frontier folklore rather than an endorsement of crime. The sculpture is expected to serve as both a tourist draw tied to the adjacent museum and a gathering spot for residents, complementing the concerts the city continues to host in the park throughout the summer.

It seems that an aspect of Cassidy now enriches the Montpelier community he once robbed, rather than his own coffers and cabal of criminal co-conspirators.