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TEXAS
RANGERS HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM
Famous Lawmen Story in Waco
Did
you know The Lone Ranger was a Texas Ranger? Well, it makes sense with
the name but it never really occurs to you until
standing before
the famous movie, radio and comic book character memorabilia of the matinee
serial hero in the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame Museum in Waco, Texas.
Perhaps the confusion is that most official rangers don’t wear
masks. The original radio programs said the story was set in Texas, but
much of the relationship to place was later abandoned, or perhaps assumed.
The lawman Texas Ranger shouldn’t be confused with the baseball
team, but the story of the cowboy law force is such an integral part
of Texas lore, the official symbol of the Texas Rangers, a silver star
in a circle can be seen painted on neighborhood houses.
The
early Texas Rangers, were first formed in 1823 by Stephen F. Austin,
as “rangers for the common defense” essentially to protect
pioneer settlers in the territory which would later become the “lone
star” state. The first rangers were established in three companies.
The first rangers were volunteers and expected to bring their own equipment.
If they didn’t own a horse, they walked. After a decade, with the
establishment of the Republic of Texas in 1835, the rangers were reorganized
into a coordinated frontier law force. The first rangers remained a citizen
militia which went be a variety of names. After a hundred years, in 1935,
during the depression which had loosed a rash of crime, from petty theft
to infamous bank robbers, and the growth in automobile traffic on Texas’s
long roads, the ranger were reorganized again under the state Department
of Public Safety, becoming essentially the Texas version of state police.
Modern day Texas Rangers operate much like the FBI, called in to investigate
major crimes and other duties, but still with the white cowboy hat, a
required uniform element
At
the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame, the story of the rangers is told through
historic artifacts, from a collection of weapons and
badges to saddles
and photographs. Curiously, a lesser known part of the story is that
the rangers of the early west, having a fair amount of down time, were
given the task of surveying much of the broad plains, with the Vara chain
of the surveyor, more the tool of day rather than the six-gun. More
familiar at the museum is the place of the Texas Ranger in popular culture,
both fact and fiction. It was a former Texas Ranger, Frank Hamer, who
tracked the bank robbing spree of Bonnie and Clyde, following Clyde Barrow’s
escape from the Waco jail (the jail building still exists in downtown
Waco), and orchestrated an ambush of the outlaw couple in a brutal barrage
of 150 rounds of ammunition on a country road near Gibsland, Louisiana.
The story as told in the 1967 Warren Beatty movie with familiar character
actor Denver Pyle as the real life Hamer, in droopy western mustache,
was highly fictionalized, nearly beyond recognition, except for the portrayal
of the actual death scene. Parts of the bullet riddled car would be taken
on tour of carnivals and fairs for decades after (see Bonnie
& Clyde Guns). Some 214 movies have featured rangers as characters, from “True
Grit” to “The
Over the Hill Gang”.
Perhaps
the most famous of the lawmen in fiction is Chuck Norris as “Walker
Texas Ranger”. Norris took the
name for the character from an actual early historic ranger, Samuel
Walker, but the character actually came from an earlier action film,
where Norris
played “Lone Wolf McQuade”. In a notorious Hollywood law
suit, Norris was sued for taking the idea for his long running CBS
TV show from the earlier film, without paying the original creators,
but
this particular crime was not investigated by the real rangers. The
most well-known Lone Ranger of the filmic past was Clayton Moore, whose
guns and
mask are onedisplay at the museum. But the classics don't long escape
movie remake mania. Johnny Depp is soon to appear a new big budget
Disney version of the “Lone
Ranger”, playing faithful Indian companion, Tonto, rather than
the masker avenger of the plains, creating a new bit of controversy
about Depp’s claim to Native-American heritage for his part.
There are a few Bonnie & Clyde projects in the works, from as far
away as Norway and Austria, about as far from Texas as you can get.
The museum itself
was opened in 1968 with an ever going collection and awards. A new
research center is currently under construction.
Visiting the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame
The
Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum is just minutes from downtown
Waco, off I-35 at the edge of the Baylor University campus, on University
Parks Drive. It’s hard to miss with the bronze horsed ranger out
from waving the Texas state flag. The museum is open 365 days a year
from 9 am to 5 pm; with last admission at 4:30 pm. Admission prices are
$7 for Adults, $6 seniors and Military with ID, $3 for children 6-12.
The gift shop offers a host of Texas Ranger themed gifts and memorabilia
from coffee cups to white Resitol cowboy hats, in case you want to be
the hero in your own story. “Hi yo, Silver…Away!” © Bargain
Travel West
Find the best travel and hotel deals in Waco on TripAdvisor
Web
Info
Texas Ranger
Hall of Fame
These articles are copyrighted and the sole property of Bargain Travel West and WLEV, LLC. and may not be copied or reprinted without permission.
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on Bargain Travel West:
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AMERICAN QUARTER HORSE HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM
NATIONAL COWBOY & WESTERN HERITAGE MUSEUM - OKLAHOMA
WILL ROGERS BIRTHPLACE & MUSEUM
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