#OTD in 1993, Walker, Texas Ranger, starring Chuck Norris premiered on CBS. The show consisted of 9 seasons, with Chuck Norris as Sergeant Cordell Walker, a DFW-based Texas Ranger. The series was inspired by the 1983 film, Lone Wolf McQuade, directed by Steve Carver, also starring Chuck Norris. J. J. McQuade (Norris) portrays a former […]
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#OTD in 1915, Texas Rangers murdered Jesus Bazan and his son-in-law, Antonio Longoria, in cold blood. Raiders from Mexico had ridden onto their Hidalgo County ranch and stolen horses and other supplies, so the men were faced with a predicament. The men had two choices. Report the theft and face revenge from the raiders or
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#OTD in 1915 between eleven and fifteen Mexican men were killed by Texas Rangers just outside of Ebenoza, Hidalgo County, Texas. Rangers clashed with about 40 Tejano raiders near Ebenoza, and the Rangers, reigning victorious, took 12 or more of the raiders prisoner and lynched them. According to eyewitness army scout John Peavey, “we saw
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#OTD in 1956, legendary civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall wrote to J. Edgar Hoover, head of the @FBI, complaining of Ranger intimidation of Black citizens who had sued Dallas over school segregation. Marshall, Chief Counsel of the @NAACP, was advising Dallas families in an effort to desegregate the city’s schools, pursuant to the ruling in
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#OTD in 1921, future Texas Ranger Red Burton, a sheriff’s deputy at the time, and Waco sheriff Bob Buchanan had a run-in with the Lorena Ku Klux Klan in Lorena, Texas. While Burton and Buchanan were not opposed to the Klan’s announced march, they stated they were there to prevent violence, which they were unable
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#OTD sometime in October of 1921 Texas Ranger Frank Hamer killed Mexican revolutionary and outlaw Rafael “Red” Lopez. His death marked the end of a years long tale that law enforcement would only fully come to understand in the early 2000s.
On an unknown date in October 1962, Homer Garrison, Director of @TxDPS and Chief of the Texas Rangers, dressed in blackface for a work picnic and lampooned the @NAACP. A thread on Garrison and racism in the modern Rangers.
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#OTD on January 1st, 1958, the University of Texas Press published Américo Paredes’ landmark book With His Pistol in His Hand, an examination of the life and legend of Gregorio Cortez, whose persecution by the Texas Rangers and other law enforcement made him a folk hero in the early 1900s. On June 12, 1901, sheriffs
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#OTD on January 8, 1865, Texas Confederate militiamen, including Texas Ranger captain N. M. Gillentine, attacked a large group of Kickapoo Indians camped on a tributary of the Conchos river about 25 miles southwest of where San Angelo, Texas is currently located. The Kickapoo being attacked were a large group of families, possibly as many
#OTD on January 10, 1915, Governor James “Pa” Ferguson began expanding the number of Texas Rangers as a response to “bandit incursions” at the Texas-Mexico border. At the start of the year there were around one dozen Rangers. By 1917 when Ferguson left office there were over 1,000. While Ferguson responded
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