Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!
We're in a series about one of the best Texas Rangers to ever wear the badge, the great Frank Hamer, who was brought out of retirement to take down Bonnie and Clyde.
Recap
In the last post Frank was living it up in Hollywood California and hob nobbing with the stars. But after 6 months he was also totally healed up from his gunshot wounds and itching to get back in the saddle. Literally.
By the way, as petulant, spoiled, and crazy as Gladys was when Frank met her, by this time she had matured and calmed down. It is also said that she felt deep regrets her entire life for all the trouble she caused in getting the Johnson-Sims feud started. (And a bunch of people killed).
Today's story
So Frank, Gladys, and the kids headed back to the Johnson ranch near Snyder, TX to live. One reason it was safe and the feud was faded away is because the elder Sims was dying of cancer.
Frank's wealthy father-in-law, Billy Johnson, used his connections to get Frank reinstated into the Texas Rangers immediately and he reported to duty in Brownsville.
As usual, even though they played a major role in law enforcement, the Rangers had no budget to speak of, paid the rangers a pittance, and they didn't even have a building to stay in or any type of housing. They had to live in tents on an empty lot in the city!
Once again he would be patrolling on horseback because of the rough terrain and lack of roads.
Here's Frank on Bugler near the Rio Grand:
Brownsville is just 20 miles from the Mexico border:
The situation on the border
The border was still a mess with drug dealers smuggling Mescal (which is a type of Peyote, a hallucinogenic drug). The Mexican Revolution was still going on so there were also arms smugglers and bandits.
Also, 1917 was the year the United States entered WWI so there was a big draft going on in 1918.
Well, the Texas citizens from Mexico, called Tejanos, for the most part, refused to fight for a country which they considered to be against them and treated them like second class citizens. I don't blame them.
So they would be crossing into Mexico on a nightly basis, dodging the draft, with the help of the Coyotes which they hired. Does any of this sound familiar? lol.
Drug running, Coyotes being paid to smuggle people back and forth. ..nothing on the border has changed!
Four Texas Rangers had been killed in the year before Frank arrived during engagements along the border so the job was as dangerous as ever.
The Texas Rangers were the only protection the country had along the Rio Grand. The Border Patrol hadn't been formed yet.
Okay, that's the situation. Frank gets into action right away on his first night on the border.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
PS- Yes, of course I found more old vending machines! lol. I think these are from England. The first looks like a "one arm bandit" lottery machine for books. I can't tell what currency that is but it looks English:
Next we have the amazing techological wonder called the "Egg-O-Matic" and it looks to be in the English countryside doesn't it?
And last and probably least, here is an all-time favorite.
The coal vending machine! Yay..I mean if you're heating with coal and about to run out and it's evening in the wintertime what do you do? It could also come in handy on Christmas Eve to fill those stockings with.
And you can tell this happy patron is thrilled with her bag of coal! lol. I wonder if she is a coal vending machine model or this was just a random photo.
Based on that car, this could be from the 40's.
