The Johnson Sims Feud

The Johnson & Sims families were pioneer ranchers, settling in the same region--Lampasas & Burnet counties--in the dangerous years before the Civil War. After the War, Billy & Nannie Johnson & Dave & Laura Sims establish large ranches in adjoining counties in West Texas. At the turn of the century the two families united in a marriage of 14-year-old Gladys Johnson & 21-year-old Ed Sims. Several years later a nasty divorce ensued due in part to Gladys willfulness & Ed's drinking. More trouble followed over custody of their two children & Gladys took matters into her own hands.....

The New York Times bestseller! “Frank Hamer, last of the old breed of Texas Rangers, has not fared well in history or popular culture. John Boessenecker now restores this incredible Ranger to his proper place alongside such fabled lawmen as Wyatt Earp and Eliot Ness. Here is a grand adventure story, told with grace and authority by a master historian of American law enforcement. Frank Hamer can rest easy as readers will finally learn the truth behind his amazing career, spanning the end of the Wild West through the bloody days of the gangsters.” --Paul Andrew Hutton, author of The Apache Wars To most Americans, Frank Hamer is known only as the “villain” of the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. Now, in Texas Ranger, historian John Boessenecker sets out to restore Hamer’s good name and prove that he was, in fact, a classic American hero. From the horseback days of the Old West through the gangster days of the 1930s, Hamer stood on the front lines of some of the most important and exciting periods in American history. He participated in the Bandit War of 1915, survived the climactic gunfight in the last blood feud of the Old West, battled the Mexican Revolution’s spillover across the border, protected African Americans from lynch mobs and the Ku Klux Klan, and ran down gangsters, bootleggers, and Communists. When at last his career came to an end, it was only when he ran up against another legendary Texan: Lyndon B. Johnson. Written by one of the most acclaimed historians of the Old West, Texas Ranger is the first biography to tell the full story of this near-mythic lawman.

"These true crime and murder stories between 1895 and 1910 revolve around one untested lawyer who rises from shady character to preeminent defense attorney in Houston. James Brockman seemingly appears out of nowhere to represent clients from gang leaders to jilted spouses, from wealthy storekeepers to drunken on-duty policemen. There are murder cases of jarring violence in which multiple people are shot down in a train station or a courthouse, and there are cases of uncommon humanity and sadness. The stories of these cases cross racial lines, and several tell an instructive story of the segregated Texas that affected so many lives. His career gained national recognition, including his involvement in the most famous American murder case of the young twentieth century, when he himself was murdered in Houston"--

Everything is bigger in Texas. From ranches that cover more acres of land than Rhode Island to 10-gallon hats, monster belt buckles, and heart-attack barbecue, even the most remote corners of the state are bold, proud, and full of character. Scurry County is one such place. Following trails blazed by Comanche chief Quanah Parker and the US Army, settlers began moving to this part of West Texas in the 1870s. The town of Snyder was founded as a trading post on Deep Creek, which was made famous when buffalo hunter J. Wright Mooar shot a white buffalo there in 1876. Believed to be sacred by many Native American tribes, white buffalo are rare--only one out of every 10 million. Like the white buffalo, the town of Snyder is an anomaly, a strange combination of tradition and transition. Families who have farmed and ranched here for generations live in close proximity to an increasing transient population of oil field workers, college students, engineers, and electricians. Cattle still graze where buffalo once roamed, but today, many of their former pastures are filled with futuristic wind turbines.

From their founding in the 1820s up to the modern age, the Texas Rangers have shown the ability to adapt and survive. Part of that survival depended on their use of firearms. The evolving technology of these weapons often determined the effectiveness of these early day Rangers. John Coffee “Jack” Hays and Samuel Walker would leave their mark on the Rangers by incorporating new technology which allowed them to alter tactics when confronting their adversaries. The Frontier Battalion was created at about the same time as the Colt Peacemaker and the Winchester 73—these were the guns that “won the West.” Firearms of the Texas Rangers, with more than 180 photographs, tells the history of the Texas Rangers primarily through the use of their firearms. Author Doug Dukes narrates famous episodes in Ranger history, including Jack Hays and the Paterson, the Walker Colt, the McCulloch Colt Revolver (smuggled through the Union blockade during the Civil War), and the Frontier Battalion and their use of the Colt Peacemaker and Winchester and Sharps carbines. Readers will delight in learning of Frank Hamer’s marksmanship with his Colt Single Action Army and his Remington, along with Captain J.W. McCormick and his two .45 Colt pistols, complete with photos. Whether it was a Ranger in 1844 with his Paterson on patrol for Indians north of San Antonio, or a Ranger in 2016 with his LaRue 7.62 rifle working the Rio Grande looking for smugglers and terrorists, the technology may have changed, but the gritty job of the Rangers has not.

The panhandle plains were Texas's last frontier, barren lands populated by hostile Comanche and outlaws attempting to outrun civilization. It was Texas Ranger and frontier scout Jim Jackson who first saw potential in the region. Jackson accompanied Col. Ranald Mackenzie into unsettled Kent County in 1875. He climbed a mountain at Polar to witness a sea of tall grass and a good stream of water. This was good news for Jackson's friends and relatives in Coleman County. Many chose to leave the crowded range and move their cattle herds west. Those who answered the call of the wild were Elkins, Mann, Brown, Overall, Sharp, Wallace, and a host of others. They were the point riders who took the challenge of opening Kent, Garza, Crosby, Lynn, Borden, Dawson, Mitchell, Fisher, Scurry, Stonewall, and Nolan Counties to permanent settlement.

From 1840 through 1844 East Texas was wracked by murderous violence between Regulator and Moderator factions. More than thirty men were killed in assassinations, lynchings, ambushes, street fights, and pitched battles. The sheriff of Harrison County was murdered, and so was the founder of Marshall, as well as a former district judge. Senator Robert Potter, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, was slain by Regulators near his Caddo Lake home. Courts ceased to operate and anarchy reigned in Shelby County, Panola District, and Harrison County. Only the personal intervention of President Sam Houston and an invasion of the militia of the Republic of Texas halted the bloodletting. The Regulator-Moderator War was the first and largest—in numbers of participants and fatalities—of the many blood feuds of Texas, and Bill O'Neal's book is the first detailed account of this feud. He has included numerous photographs, maps to help the reader to identify various locations of specific events, and rosters of names of the Regulator and Moderator factions arranged by the counties in which the individuals were associated—along with a roster of the victims of the war.