Five 1920 Photographs of Texas Rangers, Including Frank Hamer

El Paso, Texas: Underwood & Underwood, 1920. Five photographs measuring 7 ¼ x 9 ½ inches. Typed captions affixed and Underwood & Underwood stamps verso. One photo with large tear at corner, else excellent.. The Texas Rangers, now a statewide investigative law enforcement agency, was formed in 1823 to protect Euro-American settlers in Mexican Texas, and officially established in 1835. Throughout the 19th century, the Rangers, as an irregular military, defended Texians from attacks by Indigenous people as they expelled the Indigenous populations from their homelands, and engaged in conflicts including the Mexican-American and Texas-Indian wars. During this time they also became known for their harsh tactics, including extrajudicial killings. The force became more organized into the 20th century, though the tactics were slow to become more humane, particularly during the Mexican Revolution.

Offered here are five press photographs of Texas Rangers from 1920. The Rangers are shown posing with their horses or on horseback—in one, a Ranger shakes hands with a “Mexican Fiscale Captain”, also on horseback—and posing with an infant and its family. Two of the Rangers are identified in the captions as Captain Charles Stephens and Sergeant Hamer, likely Charles F. Stevens and Frank Hamer. Stevens (1868–1929) became captain of Ranger Company B in 1910; in 1929 he was killed in an ambush while working as a Federal Prohibition Agent. Hamer (1884–1955) was an on-again, off-again Ranger best known for his role in the posse that killed Bonnie and Clyde in 1934.

Of interest to historians of the Rangers and their public perception early in the 20th century.