What are some of your favorites?

I've read a couple:
1. Red Sky Morning by Joe Pappalardo - not incredible and lacks a little bit of focus in my opinion, but a good book about Ranger Company F in the context of the Conner feud in East Texas
2. Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer by John Boessenecker - I really liked this one. Gave an unvarnished and (in my mind) fair portrayal of Hamer who really straddled the line between the Texas Rangers of the stereotypical Wild West and their growing pains in the early 20th century.

Post I made some time ago in the What are you reading thread just copied and pasted here:

Quote:

---

Bossenecker's Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde
David Smith's Frontier Defense in the Civil War: Texas' Rangers and Rebels for the Civil War era
Oldie but still goldie Webb's The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense

There are two new histories that just came out whose authors will tell you Webb whitewashed (literally) the Rangers. Their books dig up and emphasize the dirt and racism of the Rangers but I won't mention those two books. You can find them if you want they were published in 2018 and 2020.

---

Why not call the source.

My son and I went last spring break to the museum in Waco. They had an actual Texas ranger speaking of the history of the Rangers, they had people dressed up in 1800s clothing and gear and we're making cornbread over a fire in Dutch ovens. They also had an author who sell his book the Texas Rangers and Bonnie and Clyde.

Here is the website. Plan ahead and call them and ask when they have something extra planned.

https://www.texasranger.org/texas-ranger-museum/visit/

They also have lost of books for sale in the gift shop.online at the website and they have people there that can answer any question and could probably point out a few books for you.

Walter Prescott Webb's "Texas Rangers" is considered a definitive book. I found it rather dry though.

One Ranger, a memoir by Joaquin Jackson is an interesting read. Jackson lived down in Alpine in his later years.

Quote:

---

My son and I went last spring break to the museum in Waco. They had an actual Texas ranger speaking of the history of the Rangers, they had people dressed up in 1800s clothing and gear and we're making cornbread over a fire in Dutch ovens. They also had an author who sell his book the Texas Rangers and Bonnie and Clyde.

---

That may have been my good friend Jody Edward Ginn, who is now the Director of Development at the museum. He's also an amateur-turned-historian, a former law enforcement guy who got his PhD and now writes and teaches about the Rangers. He was a consultant on the movie "Highwaymen."

This is a really good of his book I recommend about the Rangers in East Texas:

East Texas Troubles

chick79 said:

---

Walter Prescott Webb's "Texas Rangers" is considered a definitive book. I found it rather dry though.

---

Definitely dry, but good book.

I enjoyed "Colonel Jack Hays" by Greer, but lost interest once Hays went to California and founded Oakland.

I have read several and enjoyed all of them, even the ones that are probably more myth than history.

Mike Cox's two volumes on the Texas Rangers

H. Joaquin Jackson's two memoirs

Texas Ranger: Jack Hays in the Frontier Southwest by James Greer

Texas Ranger by Bossenecker

Six Years with the Texas Rangers by James Gillet

Taming the Nueces Strip by George Durham