ONE RANGER, ONE RIOT

TEN TEXAS RANGERS WHO NEVER STOOD DOWN

- MIKE COX

Now riding into their third century, one of the nation’s oldest law enforcement agencies carries a double-barreled brand known worldwide—Texas Rangers.

In August 1823, in a settler’s cabin on the Colorado River in present Fayette County, Texas, colonizer Stephen F. Austin proposed formation of a 10-man force to serve as “rangers for the common defense.” A dozen years passed before the Rangers first became an arm of the Texas government.

For years, men who rode to safeguard the frontier were not always called Rangers. Early descriptors ranged from “mounted gunmen” to “spies” to “minutemen.” Nor have the Rangers always been about law and order. For their first half century-plus, they saddled up to protect Texas from hostile Indians, not track outlaws. One absolute is that over their two centuries of history they have been both revered and reviled.

But the Rangers were well regarded by most 19th-century Texans—except American Indians fighting to retain their land, outlaws and penurious state lawmakers. The (Marshall) Texas Republican editor wrote in 1855:

“In Texas the name…‘Ranger’ is a household word…associated with noble deeds. He is the defender of the frontier; the protector of the defenseless; the avenger of…wrongs. He endures privations and hardships; sleeps it may be in the wilderness… knows not what moment a lurking savage may shoot him from his horse and scalp him; yet…he is as well contented as if he had all the luxuries of life around him.”