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 of this series Frank had finally gotten an appointment as Captain of the Texas Rangers. No one was more qualified and born to be a leader in the Rangers as Frank Hamer.
He was sworn in at the end of 1921 and the Roaring Twenties was in full swing. But he got back to the border which he loved and even back in the saddle.
Here he is riding in the Rio Grand, of course he's the one with a tie on:
With major cultural changes sweeping the nation as women especially became much more liberated and bold with a huge percentage taking up smoking and drinking in clubs with the men.
Today's story
Not only the behavior of the ladies was changing but their clothing styles were pushing against the puritan standards which had bound them for millennia. In fact, they went from this:(check out the tiny purses)
To this, with skirts as high as the knee, oh my! And of course, I don't think they could leave the house without a hat:
But wait, on the beaches they were pressing the boundaries even more. They went from this:
Basically dresses with black leggings:
To this...but the beaches were crawling with Beach Patrols who made sure there wasn't too much skin showing!
I know this looks and sounds funny but they were serious! If you broke the local laws they arrested you.
Check out this great photo of a couple of young ladies who were actually arrested for showing a SCANDULOUS amount of leg.
One of them is fighting and has to be carried but both are going into the Paddy Wagon one way or the other. Look at those guys standing around gawking.
By the way, the men had codes too, they couldn't be shirtless. I think it wasn't until about 1940 that they were allowed to go without shirts. Their standards remained as they'd been in the 1800's:
What does this have to do with Frank?
Well society was changing fast and the whole country was in favor of open alcohol sales and consumption and for the first time in history the general public actually worked with the Mafia in providing that.
This made Frank's job much harder as a Prohibition Agent but at least now he wasn't tasked with just going after bootleggers.
He was transferred down to the border again, to Del Rio. My long-suffering readers will remember that he got his first taste of success and acclaim when he shot a serial murderer who was holed up in a brothel in Del Rio.
Frank was all about efficiency and professionalism
Frank was sent in to shape up Company C, who was in shambles basically. Heads rolled when he got there and he brought discipline, order, and integrity to the unit.
His first major gun battle was with a vicious Mexican scumbag who had already murdered five American law enforcement officers. But I'll get into that story in the next post.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
