Fast-riding, fearless and skilled in frontier warfare, the earliest Texas Rangers were first a deadly band of irregulars and then hardened lawmen tracking outlaws. Genuine Texas Ranger photographs are rarities because they were not taken for public consumption; these company images and portraits stayed with the Rangers and their families.
John N. McWilliams tracked these photos through family descendants and other collectors, and on September 21, Heritage Auctions sold his Texas Ranger collection, in the best photo collectibles auction of 2013. Thanks to McWilliams’s tough and fearless dedication, these frontier Texas Rangers finally get a public showing.
***BEST OF THE WEST 2014***
Best Western Art Collection
Editor’s Choice: Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN
Reader’s Choice: Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY
•••
Best American Indian Collection
Editor’s Choice: Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ
Reader’s Choice: Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY
•••
Best Pioneer History Collection
Editor’s Choice: Pioneer Village, Minden, NE
Reader’s Choice: Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, TX
•••
Best Old West Collectibles Auction
Editor’s Choice: Brian Lebel’s Old West Auction, Denver, CO
Reader’s Choice: Heritage Auctions, Dallas, TX
•••
Best Living Western Painter
Editor’s Choice: Bill Anton
Reader’s Choice: Howard Terpning
•••
Best Western Art Gallery
Editor’s Choice: Due West Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Reader’s Choice: Desert Caballeros Western Museum: Wickenburg, AZ
Photo Gallery
Whether armed with weapons, like some of these Texans, or with their fists, Texas Rangers commanded a fearsome respect from their adversaries. These one-ninth plate tintypes were taken circa 1854 through the 1860s; $1,300.
Shown before his Ranger days, Bill McDonald stands with his Winchester 1873 lever action rifle in this circa 1880s photo. He rose to fame as one of the “Four Great Captains” due to his service as Ranger captain of Company “B,” Frontier Battalion, from 1891-1907; $3,750.
Company “D” Frontier Battalion Ranger Frank L. Schmid is shown in an 1888 cabinet card (left) taken a year before he suffered a fatal gunshot wound that finally killed him in 1893; $12,500. Shown in a similar pose, Joseph Walter Durbin served with Schmid in Capt. Frank Jones’s Company “D.” Both cabinet cards were photographed in Rio Grande City, Texas, in 1888; $10,000.
The Durbin family owned this circa 1887 photo taken in Rio Grande City, Texas. The heavily armed Rangers are (back row, from left) J. Walter Durbin and Robert McNamar (front row) George Parker and J.W. King; $4,000.
This cabinet card was taken around the time Ira Aten gained notoriety for planting dynamite bombs under fences during the “Fence Cutting Wars” of the late 1880s. Although he was ordered to remove them, which he did, the rumor they were real deterred some fence cutters; $7,000.
In this circa 1870s photo, this stylish, triple-armed Ranger wears high boots, a bib front shirt and a wide-brimmed hat that is embellished with stars on the underside; $1,800.
Believed to be some of Capt. “Rip” Ford’s Rangers, these well-armed men don’t frighten the slumbering dog; $6,000.
This San Antonio Texan stands out in his striped serape and his fringed shotgun chaps embellished with studs in this circa 1876 carte de visite; $375.
One of the best portraits of a Ranger captain in Ranger attire, this circa 1878 tintype shows Capt. Junius June Peak holding a Winchester 1873 rifle and wearing his two Colt revolvers on holstered cartridge belts, butts forward in cross draw position; $6,000.
The highlights of the collection were two photographs depicting two of the most famous Texas Rangers in the force’s history: Capt. Samuel H. Walker (above) and Capt. John S. “Rip” Ford (inset). Yet neither one found a home.
– All photos courtesy Heritage Auctions –
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