Texas Rangers’ legend began with just 10 men

Former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer was called on to catch Bonnie and Clyde when other lawmen had failed

A group of Texas Rangers armed and ready during an 1894 railroad strike at Temple.

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In 1934 police were having a hard time stopping notorious outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow as they wreaked havoc across the US. Desperate to end the gun-toting duo’s crime spree they called on a retired member of the Texas Rangers for help.

Frank Hamer had left the Texas Rangers in 1932 when Miriam “Ma” Ferguson was elected governor of Texas. Hamer was no fan of Ferguson who had pardoned bootleggers Hamer and his colleagues had caught and disliked the Rangers because they often exceeded their authority. She sacked many members of the force and replaced them with her own men.

But as Bonnie and Clyde continued to frustrate Ferguson’s officers, she allowed Lee Simmons, director of the Texas Prison system, to hire Hamer to help hunt down the duo.

Simmons wanted revenge for a prison guard killed when Barrow escaped from one of his jails. When Hamer asked him if he wanted them brought back alive Simmons said: “The thing for you to do is put them on the spot; know you are right — and then shoot everybody in sight.”

Hamer set about his task, in secret. Given Hamer’s reputation for not bringing in his man alive, Simmons worried that if the media found out the public would protest, since many had come to see Bonnie and Clyde as modern day Robin Hoods. After months of stake-outs, in April 1934, Hamer was approached by the father of a member of Barrow’s gang who told them Barrow and Parker were coming to his home on April 23. Hamer lured them into an ambush. Some witnesses say Hamer called for them to surrender, others say he and his posse just opened fire on the pair as they drove past. The story of Hamer’s chase is vividly retold in The Highwaymen, a new film now showing on Netflix which has also sparked renewed interest in the legendary force of lawmen to which he belonged.

A 1930s portrait of legendary Texas Ranger Frank Hamer.

Hamer’s manhunt
was one of Rangers’ most famous cases. While he was renowned for catching bootleggers and stopping lynchings by the Ku Klux Klansmen, he is often vilified for
being too quick to pull the trigger. That same charge also dogged other Rangers.

The Texas Rangers had their origins in a force of 10 men recruited in 1823 by Stephen Austin, to protect US citizens settling in colonies he established in Texas, then still part of Mexico. Their first mission was a punitive expedition against native Americans attacking settlers.

When the US colonists rebelled against Mexican rule, forming their own provisional government in 1835, it led to the formal establishment of a Ranger force. Set up along military lines the men received pay of $1.25
a day, but had to provide their own horses, guns and food rations. The first major of the Texas Rangers was Robert McAlpin Williamson, a newspaper editor and prosecutor. His force soon grew to 300 men.

A circa-1933 portrait of American bank robbers and lovers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Picture: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

During the war with Mexico the Rangers were called on to escort people fleeing the Mexican army, herding cattle left behind, running messages and errands.

The establishment of the Republic of Texas in 1836, independent of Mexico and the US, should have expanded their role, but under Sam Houston as president of Texas their numbers and duties were cut.

In 1838 Mirabeau B. Lamar became president and increased the number of Rangers, giving them more authority and employing them in a ruthless war against native Americans.

When Houston returned to the presidency in 1841 he realised the Rangers were a relatively cheap and effective way to patrol borders and outlying settlements.

In 1842, Captain Jack Hays led a force to repel a Mexican invasion. When Texas became part of the US in 1846 the Rangers, with local expertise, became a vital part of repelling Mexican incursions, but their importance waned in the 1850s as
the army assumed responsibility for border patrols.

The Rangers sided with the South during the US Civil War and played no part in the Reconstruction of America after the war but in 1874 they were called on to control an outbreak of lawlessness across Texas.

During the period known as the Wild West, the Texas Rangers were often the only force of law in far flung places but their role varied with the times, depending on the political climate. Employed as strike breakers during depression times in the 1890s, they fought Klansmen in the early 1900s and were sent after bootleggers in the 1920s.

But their reputation for brutality led to an investigation into their activities a century ago and saw their powers being curbed in the ’20s and ’30s.

They were eventually merged with the Texas Highway Patrol.