Tracking the Texas Ranger Historians

Published: September, 2024  Pages: 400  Features: Notes. Bib. Index.

The first systematic inquiry into the Texas Rangers did not begin until 1935 with Walter Prescott Webb’s publication The Texas Rangers. Since then numerous works have appeared on the Rangers, but no volume has been published before that covers the various historians of the Rangers and their approaches to the topic. Editors Bruce A. Glasrud and Harold J. Weiss Jr. gather essays that profile individual historians of the Texas Rangers, explore themes and issues in Ranger history, and comprise archival research, biographies, and autobiographies. more... about Tracking the Texas Ranger Historians

Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century

— Vol. 12: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: September, 2013  Pages: 320  Features: 14 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century is an anthology of fifteen previously published articles and chapter excerpts covering key topics of the Texas Rangers during the twentieth century. The task of determining the role of the Rangers as the state evolved and what they actually accomplished for the benefit of the state is a difficult challenge. The actions of the Rangers fit no easy description. There is a dark side to the story of the Rangers; during the Mexican Revolution, for example, some murdered with impunity. Others sought to restore order in the border communities as well as in the remainder of Texas. It is not lack of interest that complicates the unveiling of the mythical force. With the possible exception of the Alamo, probably more has been written about the Texas Rangers than any other aspect of Texas history. more... about Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Twentieth Century

Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Nineteenth Century

— Vol. 10: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: September, 2012  Pages: 384  Features: 9 b&w photos. Map. Notes. Bib. Index.

Tracking the Texas Rangers is an anthology of sixteen previously published articles and chapter excerpts, arranged in chronological history, covering key topics of the intrepid and sometimes controversial law officers named the Texas Rangers. Determining the role of the Rangers as the state evolved and what they actually accomplished for the benefit of the state is a difficult challenge—the actions of the Rangers fit no easy description. There is a dark side to the story of the Rangers; during the war with Mexico, for example, some murdered, pillaged, and raped. Yet these same Rangers eased the resultant United States victory. Even their beginning and the first use of the term “Texas Ranger” have mixed and complex origins. more... about Tracking the Texas Rangers: The Nineteenth Century

Yours to Command: The Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald

— Vol. 5: of Frances B. Vick Series

Published: June, 2009  Pages: 480  Features: 34 b&w illus. 7 maps. Notes. Bib. Index.

Captain Bill McDonald (1852-1918) is the most prominent of the “Four Great Captains” of Texas Ranger history. His career straddled the changing scene from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. In 1891 McDonald became captain of Company B of the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers. “Captain Bill” and the Rangers under his command took part in a number of incidents from the Panhandle region to South Texas: the Fitzsimmons-Maher prizefight in El Paso, the Wichita Falls bank robbery, the murders by the San Saba Mob, the Reese-Townsend feud at Columbus, the lynching of the Humphries clan, the Conditt family murders near Edna, the Brownsville Raid of 1906, and the shootout with Mexican Americans near Rio Grande City. In all these endeavors, only one Ranger lost his life under McDonald’s command. more... about Yours to Command: The Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald