Doug J. Swanson - Cult of glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers

There is not, nor has there ever been, a group quite like the Texas Rangers. For almost two hundred years the Rangers have created, maintained, and promoted an image of bold knights in cowboy hats who brought peace, law, and civilization to a violent, lawless, and uncivilized land. They have inspired hundreds of tales that relate their extraordinary toughness, skill, bravery, and heroism. Some of these are true.

The Rangers trace their origins to 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. As an irregular militia, they had no uniform, no flag, andfor decadesno badge. They were volunteers who arrived young, adventurous, and practically immune to danger. The early Rangers fought Indians, Mexicans, and many unfortunate others. A newspaper headline of the era called them The Fightingest Men on Earth. Later they chased rustlers, smugglers, and roving gangs of marauders. As Texas changed in the mid-twentieth century, so did the Rangers, who were transformed into a force of professional state police pursuing gangsters, kidnappers, and lawbreakers of all stripes. The roles may have been altered, but the myth remained.

Nearly all societies foster creation narratives that recall their idealized selves. Because it was once an independent republicfor less than ten years, but fiercely independent nonethelessTexas possesses a deep well of such material. The Alamo, with its mass sacrifice and valorous struggle, probably shines the brightest. If so, the Rangers run a close second.

Nowhere, historian T. R. Fehrenbach wrote, was the frontier violence in America so bloody, or so protracted, as on the soil of Texas. It is hard, maybe impossible, to believe the vast and wild territory that was Texas could have been tamed without the Rangers. With their eagerness to engage all manner of armed opponents under the harshest conditions, the Rangers played an essential role in Texass development and ethos.

Yet most Texans, with the exception of those in law enforcementand some criminalsprobably have never even seen a real Ranger. As of this writing there are fewer than 160 active Rangers in a state with 254 counties and a population of twenty-nine million.

They have always been a small, elite force. Its the image that grew big.

The model Ranger has long been depicted as tall, steely-eyed, and strong-jawed. He shoots straight and brooks no challenge to the law or his personal code of honor. He can handle any situation. And he carries the role well, as journalist Richard Harding Davis observed in 1892. There are still the Texas Rangers, Davis wrote, and in them the man from the cities of the East will find the picturesqueness of the Wild West show and its happiest expression. Davis visited a Ranger camp in South Texas, marveled at their shooting skills, and gushed, Some of them were remarkably handsome in a sun-burned, broad-shouldered, easy, manly way.

No law enforcement agency has been celebrated so much for so long in popular culture. Beginning in 1910, when a silent picture called The Rangers Bride flickered briefly, more than three hundred movies and television series have featured a Ranger. Hollywood has, for example, given the world The Texas Ranger (1931), The Texas Rangers (1936), The Texas Rangers (1951), Texas Rangers (2001), and The Texas Rangers Ride Again (1940), as well as Red Hot Rangers (1947), The Fighting Ranger (1934 and 1948), Bandit Ranger (1942) and The Ranger and His Horse (1912). In 1943 alone, no fewer than seventeen feature films incorporated Ranger characters. Among them were Hail to the Rangers, The Return of the Rangers, and Border Buckaroos.

John Wayne played a Ranger on the big screen. So did Audie Murphy, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers. Clint Eastwood too. In King of the Texas Rangers, released in 1941, legendary quarterback Sammy Baugh portrayed a Ranger thwarting enemy agents who attempt to attack Texas oil fields from a zeppelin.

Perhaps the most famous imaginary Ranger of them allat least until Chuck Norris employed martial arts as Walker, Texas Ranger on televisionwas the Lone Ranger. Tales from those thrilling days of yesteryear began in radio serials and moved to television and film. The Lone Ranger owned a crime-fighting career that has spanned almost ninety years.

Dime novels and western pulp fiction presented the Rangers to generations of readers. Magazines like Texas Rangers, published from 1936 to 1958, delivered lively talesLone Star Doom, for example, and Pecos Poisonmonthly by mail. Larry McMurtrys 1985 novel