Texas Ranger

1. A member of a division of the Texas state highway patrol.
2. A member of a former mounted force of Texans organized in 1835 and active in maintaining order on the frontier.

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Established in the 1830s, a loosely organized militia that controlled law and order in the State of Texas until it was merged with the state highway patrol in 1935. After Texas had won its independence from Mexico, the Rangers also served as a border patrol. They were responsible for making the Colt revolver (six-shooter) the best-known weapon of the West, and now hold a prominent place in Texas legend.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

In 1823 Stephen F. Austin hired ten men he called "rangers" to conduct a raid against the Indians. On 24 November 1835 the Texas legislature created a police force of three companies, fifty-six men each, known as Texas Rangers. Their numbers and reputation rose and fell, influenced by threats to the Texas Republic and governmental economy. Organized along military lines, the rangers had no uniforms in the nineteenth century. Later they began to wear suits with the ubiquitous cowboy hat.

Rangers served in the Texas Revolution as scouts, but their numbers remained small. In December 1838 Mira-beau B. Lamar, president of the Republic, added eight companies. Until the Mexican-American War the rangers were Indian fighters. During his second presidency of Texas, Sam Houston used 150 rangers under the command of Captain John Coffee Hays to protect the frontier from Indian raids, and the rangers gained a reputation for toughness and dedication to duty.

After Texas became a state, from 1848 to 1858, the rangers had no official duties since the United States controlled the border and the frontier. In January 1858 Senior Captain John S. "Rip" Ford led attacks on Indians from the Red River to Brownsville. During the Civil War and Reconstruction the rangers contributed little to law and order, but subsequently they pacified the border with Mexico and stopped various feuds in the state. Between 1890 and 1920 the state legislature dramatically reduced the number of rangers.

The Mexican Revolution changed the situation. Reacting to Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico, rangers killed approximately five thousand Hispanics from 1914 to 1919. Shocked, the state legislature set new standards of recruitment and professionalism. In the 1920s the rangers dealt with riots, labor strikes, the Ku Klux Klan, and oil strikes. The Great Depression marked a low point in the organization's history. Because the rangers supported her opponent in the Democratic primary, Miriam A. "Ma" Ferguson fired all forty-four rangers. The new force was only thirty-two men.

In 1935 legislators created the Texas Department of Public Safety and administratively combined the rangers, the highway patrol, and a state crime lab. The five companies of rangers were restored, and qualifying examinations and behavioral standards were instituted. Between 1938 and 1968 Colonel Homer Garrison Jr. shifted the rangers' focus to detective work. During that time, in response to World War II, fears of sabotage, the civil rights movement, and urbanization, the number of Rangers increased.

After 1968 the rangers worked closely with local police and improved their recruitment, training, and scientific methods. By 1993 the ninety-nine officers included two women, and by 1996 Texas had 105 rangers.

Bibliography

Gillett, James B. Six Years with the Texas Rangers, 1875–1881. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1925. A classic autobiography.

Procter, Ben. Just One Riot: Episodes of the Texas Rangers in the Twentieth Century. Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1991. A brief scholarly evaluation.

Webb, Walter Prescott. The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense. 2d ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965. The major source for understanding the Rangers' behavior and their resulting reputation.