According to my family history and stories on my dad's side, my ancestors in the Vernal area were on friendly terms with and harbored Butch Cassidy. I'd be very happy with Outlaws as the team name. It's definitely one of the best options, IMO, and there is a real Utah connection.

Most western outlaws identified with the common people. Backgrounds of some members of the Wild Bunch show easy identification with the small ranchers and farmers who were so common throughout the West. Butch Cassidy was raised on a small ranch in southern Utah by Mormon parents. Elzy Lay, originally from Ohio, had migrated west to Colorado with his family. There, after a failed romance, he drifted into outlawry and infamy with the Wild Bunch. Lay was a tall, slender, handsome man known for reading and being a top bronc rider and ranch hand, with a way with women and horses. Harry Longabaugh, the "Sundance Kid," was thought to be from Pennsylvania, where he claimed to be from a "good family." A lesser-known member of the gang was Henry Wilber Meeks, another former Mormon. Meeks was from Wallsburg, Utah, where his father was a freighter. Harvey Logan, or "Kid Curry," had come from a small ranching family in Montana. Many other outlaws throughout the era had nothing extraordinary in their backgrounds. Most were from common backgrounds, and many became outlaws largely due to the conditions of the times. Some outlaws were careful from whom they stole, and at times shared with those in severe need with whom they came in contact, thus fostering the Robin Hood myth. Though it must be remembered that it is only natural to rob from the rich--after all, they are the ones with more worth stealing.

A large measure of the success of the Wild Bunch and other Utah outlaws was founded on the support of local people. Exchanging fresh horses for trail-weary ones, misleading lawmen with carefully constructed stories, and cooking meals with no questions asked were commonplace services said to have been performed for outlaws.

The Outlaw Trail, which ran from Mexico to Canada and was comprised of key friendly ranches coupled with hard-to-find hideouts such as Robber's Roost and Brown's Park, ran through Utah's length. Here the majority of the population was Mormon, and here the outlaws' reception is especially peculiar. Mormons, for the most part, abhorred violence and crime, yet many outlaws were on friendly terms with local citizens. An explanation for this is possible through understanding Utah's economic situation of the late 1800s. Mormons had long been outcasts themselves--socially, politically, and economically--and in the late nineteenth century suffered severe persecutions at the hand of the government over their practice of polygamy. There is little wonder that the Mormons felt resentment and distrust toward outside interests, whether government or big business.

An examination of the lives of most western outlaws most likely would reveal a lifestyle of night riding, missed meals, hot pursuits, poorly tended wounds, broken friendships, and economic deprivation. They were usually broke or in hiding, unable to spend stolen money. There was little glamour in the real lives of outlaws. They experienced difficult family relations, long trails, and fear of treachery with the knowledge that, regardless of the cause, they were outlaws and anyone could turn them in for the reward money. Yet it was reported that Utah's cowboy outlaws were often gentlemen in their manner. Often outgoing and friendly, they posed little threat to the average citizen. And in their selection of targets for robbery they at times maintained an identification with the common people while becoming hated enemies of big business. Those outlaws were products of the times and gained, if not the respect, at least the tolerance of their fellows, and the near cult worship of today's western history enthusiasts.