Winner of the 2008 Rupert N. Richardson AwardBook of the Year by the National Association for Outlaw and Lawmen History

On a sweltering August night in 1876, Methodist minister William England, his wife, Selena, and two of her children were brutally slaughtered in their North Texas home. Acting on Selena’s deathbed testimony, a neighbor, his brother-in-law, and a friend were arrested and tried for the murders. Murder in Montague tells the story of this gruesome crime and its murky aftermath. In this engrossing blend of true crime reporting, social drama, and legal history, author Glen Sample Ely presents a vivid snapshot of frontier justice and retribution in Texas following the Civil War. The sheer brutality of the Montague murders terrified settlers already traumatized by decades of chaos, violence, and fear—from the deadly raids of Comanche and Kiowa Indians to the terrors of vigilantes, lynchings, and Reconstruction lawlessness. But the crime's aftermath—involving five Texas governors, five trials at Montague and Gainesville, five appeals to the Texas Court of Appeals, and three life sentences at hard labor in the state's abominable and inhumane prison system—offered little in the way of reassurance or resolution. Viewed from any perspective, the 1876 England family murders were both a human tragedy and a miscarriage of justice. Combining the long view of history and the intimate detail of true crime reporting, Murder in Montague deftly captures this moment of reckoning in the story of Texas, as vigilante justice grudgingly gave way to an established system of law and order.

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and the Lone Star State can certainly boast of immense ranches, vast oil fields, enormous cowboy hats, and larger-than-life heroes. Among the greatest of the latter are the iconic Texas Rangers, a service that has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum continues to honor these legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. While upholding a proud heritage of duty and sacrifice, even men who wear the cinco peso badge can have their own champions. Thirty-one individuals—whose lives span more than two centuries—have been enshrined in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. In The Ranger Ideal Volume 2: Texas Rangers in the Hall of Fame, 1874-1930, Darren L. Ivey presents capsule biographies of the twelve inductees who served Texas in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Ivey begins with John B. Jones, who directed his Rangers through their development from state troops to professional lawmen; then covers Leander H. McNelly, John B. Armstrong, James B. Gillett, Jesse Lee Hall, George W. Baylor, Bryan Marsh, and Ira Aten—the men who were responsible for some of the Rangers’ most legendary feats. Ivey concludes with James A. Brooks, William J. McDonald, John R. Hughes, and John H. Rogers, the “Four Great Captains” who guided the Texas Rangers into the twentieth century.

"The ranching boom of the 1880s made the Texas Panhandle town of Tascosa 'the cowboy capital of the world.' Through it passed many people, good and bad, who made history in the West. Yet when the large ranches broke up, Tascosa disappeared as quickly as it had risen"--Provided by publisher.

Ira Aten was the epitome of a frontier lawman. He enrolled in Company D of the Texas Rangers during the transition from Indian fighters to peace officers. The years Ira spent as a Ranger were packed with adventure, border troubles, shoot-outs, major crimes, and manhunts. Aten's role in these events earned him a spot in the Ranger Hall of Fame.

Texas writer/historian Mike Cox explores the inception and rise of the famed Texas Rangers. Starting in 1821 with just a handful of men, the Rangers' first purpose was to keep settlers safe from the feared and gruesome Karankawa Indians, a cannibalistic tribe that wandered the Texas territory. As the influx of settlers grew, the attacks increased and it became clear that a much larger, better trained force was necessary. From their tumultuous beginning to their decades of fighting outlaws, Comanche, Mexican soldados and banditos, as well as Union soldiers, the Texas Rangers became one of the fiercest law enforcement groups in America. In a land as spread-out and sparsely populated as the west itself, the Rangers had unique law-enforcement responsibilities and challenges. The story of the Texas Rangers is as controversial as it is heroic. Often accused of vigilante-style racism and murder, they enforced the law with a heavy hand. But above all they were perhaps the defining force for the stabilization and the creation of Texas. From Stephen Austin in the early days through the Civil War, the first eighty years of the Texas Rangers is nothing less then phenomenal, and the efforts put forth in those days set the foundation for the Texas Rangers that keep Texas safe today. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The tally of Texas lawmen killed during the states first sixty-five years of organized law enforcement is truly staggering. From Texas Rangers the likes of Silas Mercer Parker Jr., gunned down at Parkers Fort in 1836, to Denton County sheriff s deputy Floyd Coberly, murdered by an inmate in 1897 after ten days on the job, this collection accounts for all of those unsung heroes. Not merely an attempt to retell a dozen popular peace officer legends, Texas Lawmen, 18351899 represents thousands of hours of research conducted over more than a decade. Ron DeLord and Cliff Caldwell have carefully assembled a unique and engaging chronicle of Texas history.

Captain Bill McDonald's (1852-1918) admirers rank him as one of the great captains of Texas Ranger history. His detractors see him as an irresponsible lawman who precipitated violence, hungered for publicity, and related tall tales that cast himself in the hero's role. This title seeks to find the true Bill McDonald and sort fact from myth.

Texas, that most singular of states, conceals an entire parade of peculiar events and exceptional people in the back pages of its history books. A Lone Star man once (and only once) tried to bulldog a steer from an airplane. One small Texas town was attacked by the Japanese, while another was "liberated" from America during the Cold War. Texan career choices include goat gland doctor, rubbing doctor, striking cowboy and singing cowboy, not to mention swatter, tangler and dunker. From gunslinger Sally Skull to would-be rainmaker R.G. Dyrenforth, Clay Coppedge collects the distinctive odds and ends of Texan lore.

Until the early twentieth century, printed invitations to executions issued by lawmen were a vital part of the ritual of death concluding a criminal proceeding in the United States. In this study, Gordon Morris Bakken invites readers to an understanding of the death penalty in America with a collection of essays that trace the history and politics of this highly charged moral, legal, and cultural issue. Bakken has solicited essays from historians, political scientists, and lawyers to ensure a broad treatment of the evolution of American cultural attitudes about crime and capital punishment. Part one of this extensive analysis focuses on politics, legal history, multicultural issues, and the international aspects of the death penalty. Part two offers a regional analysis with essays that put death penalty issues into a geographic and cultural context. Part three focuses on specific states with emphasis on the need to understand capital punishment in terms of state law development, particularly because states determine on whom the death penalty will be imposed. Part four examines the various means of death, from hanging to lethal injection, in state law case studies. And finally, part five focuses on the portrayal of capital punishment in popular culture.