The Best of the Best

Who were the men said to “ride like a Mexican, track like a Comanche, shoot like a Kentuckian, and fight like the devil?” A Texas Ranger, of course. First created by Stephen Austin in a call-to-arms in 1823, these lawmen remain to this day a division of the Texas Department of Public Safety. In the early days of Texas, they made their mark as lawmen you didn’t want to mess with. They stopped the assassination of presidents William Howard Taft and Porfirio Diaz in El Paso; they worked on some of the most notorious cases in the state, from bank robber Sam Bass to gunfighter John Wesley Hardin to outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. In 2014, there were 150 commissioned members of the Texas Rangers. A museum dedicated to their history and accomplishments is in Waco, Texas.