MIRROR LAKE J.E. TEMPLE PETERS BONNIE & CLYDE
REC BUILDING RANGER HIGH SCHOOL TRAIN ROBBERY
WALTER PRESCOTT WEBB SALOONS & CABARETS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
BYRON PARRISH FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
MIRROR LAKE - Early on, Ranger recognized the importance of recreational
facilities. During the oil boom, planning began for a park at Mirror
Lake, on what used to be the J. M. Rice (James Monroe Rice, 1844-1917)
property at the west end of Main Street. John Rust, J.M. Rice’s grandson,
recalled in the Oral History of the Texas Oil Industry (Dolph Briscoe
Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin) that his
grandfather’s lake was an early source of water for Ranger.
A 1919 newspaper article announced that developers, the Black Brothers,
held a ten-year lease on Mirror Lake, as well as on five acres adjoining
it. They intended to develop the area into a park. A springboard and a
sliding chute were installed at Mirror Lake, and designs for a bathhouse,
recreation room, and boathouse were developed by a local architectural
firm.
The entertainment center was to have its floor refinished to make it
suitable for dancing. Tables, benches, and swings were added to the park.
Paul Daily, a landscape gardener from Arizona, was in charge of park
beautification. A water pumping station was installed to supply water
for the park lawns and to provide fire protection. The plans included
six steel rowboats, all available for rental. A postcard advertised
Mirror Lake’s bathing beach. The developers planned to stock the Lake
with fish.
Mirror Lake is pictured in a 1921 West Texas Chamber of Commerce
publication touting Ranger’s attractions. Eventually the park was
supplanted by a park across the street to the east. The lake in that
park was in turn replaced by a swimming pool, part of Willow Park
(also called Willows Park or City Park). Mirror Lake continues in
name although not as the park that the developers envisioned. A
recent Eastland County Today news item mentioned that Mirror Lake
had some water in it following heavy rains.
Mirror Lake in Ranger
J.E. TEMPLE PETERS - was one of the four teachers in Ranger between
1899 and 1902. He became co-principal in 1902 and then head of the
school in 1904. Before 1914 the school system was considered too
small for the head of the school to be called superintendent. He
served in the role of what would now be called superintendent until
1908. Under his guidance the six-room red brick school building was
built in 1905, replacing a wooden structure. During his tenure the
number of teachers rose from four to seven.
Walter Prescott Webb, later a member of the University of Texas
history faculty and noted historian, was one of Peters’ students. Webb
remembered him as an extraordinary teacher, who had an almost hypnotic
effect on his students. In addition to the usual academic subjects,
he took the boys aside for other lessons: they should tip waiters,
have their shoes shined, send candy to their dates, wear clean linen
and tailor-made clothes, and stay in the best hotels, if they could
afford it.
After leaving Ranger he became teacher and principal in schools in
Scranton, Cisco, and Abilene. He returned to Ranger to manage the
Chamber of Commerce. Afterwards he managed Chambers of Commerce in
Denison, Stamford, and Cisco. Eventually he served as liaison officer
with the Texas Legislature for all the Chambers of Commerce of Texas.
His final position was a department head with the Dallas office of
the U. S. Department of Agriculture, from which he retired in 1947.
Joseph Evans Temple Peters was born in Patchenville, Steuben County,
New York October 8, 1879. He came to Texas in 1892 with his parents,
Rev. and Mrs. John H. Peters. They settled first in Menard and then
presumably in Rising Star, since he graduated from Rising Star High
School with a first-grade teaching certificate. Soon thereafter he
was in Ranger: he is in a picture of Ranger’s first baseball team,
probably taken after the team was declared champions in 1898-1899
after defeating the Thurber Black Spiders. Also soon after arriving
in Ranger, he began his illustrious career as teacher and head of
the Ranger school.
He married Vera Charlton Rawls, one of his former students (she is
in a 1903 picture of his class). They had three children, only one
of whom, William Charlton Peters, survived childhood. Vera preceded
her husband in death. He then married Cordelia (“Dee”) Bacon Gross,
a widow. She had been one of the teachers in Ranger when Peters was
a teacher and then head of the school. He died April 30, 1967.
T.E. Temple Peters
BONNIE & CLYDE - The famous, the not-so-famous, and the infamous:
visitors to Ranger and passers-through usually fit into one of these
categories. Probably no one fit better in the “infamous” category
than Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. They met in 1930 but were
separated when Clyde went to prison on burglary charges. He escaped
but was recaptured a short time afterwards and sentenced to 14 years
in the state penitentiary. He was paroled in 1932, and he and Bonnie
reunited.
With other members, including Clyde’s brother Buck, the Barrow gang,
as it began to be called, committed a series of holdups throughout a
several state area—banks, filling stations, restaurants, in short any
place that might have some cash available for the taking. In the course
of their holdups and escapes, they murdered at least 13 people (sources1
differ as to the exact number) including law officers. Buck was killed
in one of the escapades. The Barrow gang’s exploits over a little more
than two years made national headlines. One writer pointed out that in
a way, the Barrow gang provided entertainment for a nation in the throes
of the Great Depression.
In January 1934 the gang made a daring and successful attack on a Texas
prison, freeing convicted bank robber Raymond Hamilton, who had been a
member of the gang before he was caught and imprisoned. They also freed
Henry Methvin, and he joined up. Members of the gang came and went, the
latter sometimes as a result of quarreling among themselves. At some
point Hilton Bybee joined the group.
Fresh from successful robberies in several states, the Barrow gang came
to Texas, Bonnie and Clyde’s home state. More in need of firearms than
cash, the gang burglarized the National Guard Armory in Ranger February 19,
1934. The date of the burglary differs in various accounts, but an Armory
break-in was reported in a February 20th issue of a Ranger newspaper,
making it likely that the burglary took place on the 19th. Too, the
formal charge specified the date of the crime as February 19th.
Thirteen .45-caliber Colt automatic pistols, four Browning automatic rifles,
and clips for the latter were taken. March 23rd issues of the Eastland
County News and The Loud Speaker reported that three men were arrested in
connection with the burglary, but investigations by Texas Rangers and
Ranger police determined that the real culprits were the Barrow gang. A
May 13th issue of The Ranger Daily Times reported that Clyde Barrow, Bonnie
Parker, Henry Methvin, Raymond Hamilton, and Hilton Bybee had been charged
with the crime. One source said that the Ranger Armory was one of several
armories hit by the Barrow gang.
On February 1, 1934, shortly before the Ranger burglary, the head of the
Texas prison system asked retired Texas Ranger Frank Hamer to assume the
new position of special investigator for the system. Hamer was specifically
assigned the task of tracking down the Barrow gang. Tipped off as to Bonnie
and Clyde’s whereabouts by gang member Henry Methvin, Hamer Methvin, Hamer
and FBI special agent. L.A. Kindell tracked them down to Methvin’s father’s
farm near Arcadia, Louisiana. They set up an ambush at Gibsland, Louisiana,
near the farm. On May 23rd, Bonnie and Clyde, traveling by themselves, were
killed by a posse in a barrage of bullets.
Raymond Hamilton, who had left the Barrow gang, was caught in April 1934
when he and an accomplice robbed a bank in Lewisville, Denton County, Texas.
Henry Methvin was eventually captured and sentenced to 15 months in prison.
However, he was later pardoned for having tipped off authorities about
Bonnie and Clyde’s whereabouts. In September 1935, though, he was convicted
of a murder in Oklahoma and sentenced to die in the electric chair. Hilton
Bybee was sentenced to 90 days in prison.
The National Guard Armory in Ranger was just north of the Masonic Lodge
building on South Rusk Street in what had been the Liberty Theater when it
was built in 1920. A lightening strike in 1990 destroyed the building. The
Carl Barnes Post no. 69 of the American Legion, organized in 1923, had
sponsored and helped organize Ranger’s National Guard. Some rifles belonging
to the American Legion Rifle Club were in the Armory at the time of the
burglary, but they were bypassed.
The Barrow gang’s exploits were the subject of several movies, perhaps most
notably Bonnie and Clyde (1967) starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. The
gang was the topic of many articles and several books. Among the books was
Winston G. Ramsey’s On the Trail of Bonnie & Clyde, originally issued in
London, England in 2003 by After the Battle (Battle of Britain International
Ltd.) in its “Then and Now” series. Jeane Pruett, President of the Ranger
Historical Preservation Society, contributed the story of Ranger’s experience
with the Barrow gang to the book. Thanks to Mac Jacoby for supplying some of
the information on which this article was based.
RECREATION BUILDING - Like the rest of the nation, Ranger suffered during
the Great Depression, especially in the number of people unemployed. Several
New Deal public assistance programs were established, among them the Civil
Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration.
During its short life of November 1933 through March 1934, in addition to
other projects the CWA funded labor for construction jobs, mainly for public
buildings. Early in 1934 a committee of three from the Ranger Chamber of
Commerce and three from the Ranger Independent School District put together
a proposal for CWA funding for a combined municipal auditorium/gymnasium.
R.F. Holloway, superintendent of schools, was the major force behind the
proposal.
Some sources incorrectly describe what came to be called the recreation
building as a WPA project, but the WPA was not established until April 1935,
over a year after a newspaper article announced CWA funding for the project.
The article acknowledged that without CWA funding, the project would be
almost impossible to do.
The CWA approved the committee’s proposal very quickly, and it was announced
that work would begin immediately. The CWA ended up funding between $11,000
and $12,000 for labor. A bond issue for $5,000 to $6,000 to buy some
materials passed. Not many additional materials were needed. The three-
story Tiffin elementary school had been demolished in 1933, and the bricks
were stacked and saved in anticipation that they could be used for an
eventual municipal auditorium/gymnasium.
Tiffin, about four miles northeast of Ranger, had started out as a switch
station on the Texas & Pacific Railroad. Its population had grown to about
1,000 during the oil boom, but after the boom, population declined sharply.
After the Ranger Independent School District incorporated the elementary
school in Tiffin into the RISD and Tiffin students started coming to Ranger,
the school building was no longer needed.
In addition to the auditorium and gymnasium, plans called for the building
to provide an armory for the local National Guard unit, a cafeteria, a
school tax office, the administrative offices for the high school and
junior college (at that time the junior college was on the top floor of
the high school building), two apartments, and a club room. William
Bourdeau, a Ranger builder/general contractor, was project superintendent.
The building was designed by Fred Wilson, a carpenter with architectural
skills who worked for Bourdeau. The location was the northwest corner
of South Marston and Pine Streets, across the street to the north from
the high school.
In a 1993 interview Bill Bourdeau, who had worked with his father on the
building, reminisced how the building came to be called the recreation
building. The sign originally read “Ranger High School gymnasium,” but
the government inspector said that the name was unacceptable, since the
building had to be for the entire community according to CWA guidelines.
Thus the name was changed to “Ranger recreation building.” Bourdeau
recalled that he and his dad had worked at nights sanding the floor in
order for the high school class of 1934 to be able to graduate in the
building.
The recreation building did not have all the features in the original
plans. An apartment on the second floor at the rear of the building
served as a residence for the football coach. There was space for 600
people to sit on the playing court for events on the stage, and the
balcony could hold 500. The school tax office and the office of the
RISD superintendent of schools have been in the building in the fairly
recent past.
The recreation building has long served as a venue for basketball games,
physical education classes when the high school was across the street,
voting, fundraisers, pep rallies, etc. Every two years the Ranger Ex-
Students Association holds Ranger Homecoming events in the recreation
building. For over 80 years it has been an integral part of Ranger’s
community life.
Recreation Building in the late 30s
RANGER HIGH SCHOOL - A two-story frame building opening for the first
time for the 1886/87 school year housed all grades. In 1905 a two-
story, six-room red brick building was built that housed only high
school students. It was the first building known as “Ranger High
School.”
Some nearby communities which had only elementary schools, among them
Russell’s Creek, Lone Cedar, and Tiffin, sent high school students to
Ranger. Some high school students came to Ranger from farther afield.
M.H. Hagaman, early teacher and school superintendent, commented that
some out-of-town families sent their high-school-age students to Ranger
for schooling because of the quality of the high school education Ranger
offered. They boarded with local families.
Walter Prescott Webb, an early graduate of Ranger High School, recalled
those early high school classes many years later. They were, he said, a
mixture of the most unsophisticated country kids one could imagine and
sophisticated city kids: boys who knew how to wear a white collar and
the most charming girls, with bows in their hair and buckles on their
shoes.
Ranger’s school population burgeoned during the oil boom, making it
necessary to hold half-day school sessions, even with the hurried
construction of some temporary buildings. Planning for a massive
construction program for a high school building and several elementary
school buildings began during the oil boom and was carried out over a
several-year period during and after the boom.
Bonds were voted in 1921 for the construction of a high school building,
but a collapse of the bond market delayed their sale until 1922. In
1922 a contract was signed for the construction of a $250,000 high
school building. The building was completed in spring of 1923. It
had not only classrooms but also a library, auditorium, gymnasium,
facilities for a radio station and motion picture projection, a
cafeteria, a manual training workshop, science laboratories, and
home economics rooms. It was located on South Marston Street, between
Pine and Elm Streets. One writer described it: “This superb building
reflected the latest architectural beauty and perfection.”
The building housed Ranger Junior College from the time of its first
session in the fall of 1926 until it moved in 1948 to what had been
Cooper Ward School. College classes were for the most part taught
on the third floor of the high school building. High school consisted
of grades nine through eleven until at some point a twelfth grade was
added. After the junior college moved out, junior high school, or
seventh and eighth grades, occupied the third floor.
In a 1929 newspaper article superintendent R. F.Holloway said that
there were about 550 high school students. There were 20 faculty
members and a school nurse. He pointed out that in addition to the
usual academic courses, music classes in the wind instruments, piano,
voice, and violin were taught. Latin and Spanish were taught, as
well as a course in “expression” (speech).
The 1924 volume of Touchdown, the high school yearbook, described
the special departments. The Commercial Department was the largest,
with 190 students enrolled. Courses in bookkeeping and stenography
(but not typing in the early days) were taught. The Manual Training
Department included both shop work and mechanical drawing instruction.
The Sewing Department was the oldest department, having been started
before the move into the new building. Each of the 30 girls in the
Domestic Science and Cooking Department had to prepare breakfast,
lunch, and dinner (“in grand style,” the yearbook said) in her home
for one week as well as cook 80 “practical dishes,” presumably in the
course of the year.
The same volume of Touchdown listed organizations: Glee Club, Music
Club, Boosters Club, Choral Club, Junior and Senior Literary Societies,
Tennis Club, Galvez Club (all the girls taking sewing), “R” Association,
Spanish Club, and Latin Club. The Ranger High School Band was organized
in 1924. It played with the Ranger Junior College Band after the junior
college moved into the building. Athletics consisted of football,
basketball, baseball, boxing and wrestling, track, and tennis. A
lighted football stadium seating 4,500 spectators was completed in
the mid-1930’s. Adjoining the stadium was a lighted baseball field.
Annual special events included the seniors’ play, the junior-senior
banquet, kid day (seniors dressed in children’s clothes), and a banquet
hosted by the Boosters Club. The Hi-Hub was the student newspaper.
Seniors issued a “senior class prophecy” and individual wills and
testaments for the yearbook. The following were named in the 1924
yearbook: Best All-Around Boy, Prettiest Girl, Best All-Around Girl,
and Most Popular Boy.
In the mid-70’s it was decided that it would be more economical to
build a new school facility, with all grades under the same roof,
rather than renovate all the aging buildings. The class of 1977
was the last class to graduate in the old high school building. The
new facility, on Highway 80 East, was ready in time for the class
of 1978 to graduate there. The old building was torn down beginning
in 1978.
TRAIN ROBBERY - trains began to flourish in the United States in the
nineteenth century, especially with the development of the American
West. With the advent of the train came a new category of crime:
train robberies. Newspapers had many accounts of train robberies
and attempted robberies. Trains carrying large sums of money, for
example, payrolls, were a major target. These shipments were
guarded by an expressman, whose responsibility it was to guard
the express car.
The Texas & Pacific began operating through Ranger October 15, 1880.
Less than two years later, on the morning of April 21, 1882, Ranger
had a train robbery. Five men boarded the eastbound train from San
Francisco at Ranger carrying Winchester rifles and Colt revolvers.
The Austin Daily Statesman described the robbers as four beardless
youths dressed like cowboys and a stalwart man who looked like a
desperado and appeared to be the leader. Four of the robbers
captured the conductor, fireman, engineer, and brakeman and held
them captive alongside the engine. The presumed leader of the group
headed for the express car and demanded that the expressman open
the safe.
In the meantime a porter saw what was happening and ran to the
passenger car, where there were three Texas Rangers. The Rangers
had been riding the train for several weeks to serve as guards.
They opened fire on the robbers, who returned their fire. One of
the robbers was wounded (the newspaper account does not say how).
After everyone was outside, the robbers put the captured train
crew between them and the Rangers until they were able to escape.
None of the Rangers nor any of the train crew was injured other
than the telegraph operator, who had a minor injury on his hand
caused by a stray bullet. The express car was riddled with bullets.
The article in The Austin Daily Statesman said that less than $500
was taken from the express car. The same article speculated,
however, that a much larger haul was made and the railroad did
not want the public to know the extent of the loss. Neither the
mail nor any passengers were disturbed, thanks largely to the
action of the Rangers.
Five days later the Rangers and other pursuers captured three of
the robbers. Railroad officials had claimed to know their identities.
The wounded member of the group had been captured two days earlier.
The general manager of Texas & Pacific had announced a reward of
$1,000 for the capture and conviction of the robbers. Later accounts
reported that all the robbers had been captured and sent to the
state penitentiary, where one of them eventually died.
WALTER PRESCOTT WEBB - Over the years Ranger High School has had
many alumni who have gone on to distinguished careers in the profes-
sions, other employment, and/or service in the armed forces. One such
alumnus is Walter Prescott Webb, who earned a teaching certificate
in the class of 1906. He went on to become a well-known historian,
writer, and long-time member of the history faculty at the University
of Texas.
Years after he had gotten his teaching certificate, he reminisced
about school days in Ranger. He recalled J. E. Temple Peters, an
early teacher and head of the school system, as an extraordinary
teacher, one who had, Webb said, an almost mesmerizing effect on
his students.
Webb described those early Ranger High School classes as a mixture
of the most unsophisticated country kids one could imagine and
sophisticated city kids: boys who knew how to wear a white collar
and the most charming girls, with bows in their hair and buckles
on their shoes. Webb remembered kids’ principal amusement was to
watch the passenger trains go by. For real excitement they would
walk the Texas & Pacific railroad tracks to the 98-foot tall “high
trestle” in the hilly area northeast of town, and as a freight
train would slow down for the grade, the bolder boys would hop on
for a ride back to town.
Webb was born April 3, 1888 in Panola County, Texas, the son of
Casner P. and Mary Elizabeth (Kyle) Webb. Casner Webb was a part-
time schoolteacher and part-time farmer. From Panola County the
family moved first near Breckenridge and then nine miles northwest
of Ranger near the Stephens and Eastland county line. In 1905
the family moved to Ranger. Walter had no interest in farming,
and he and his father agreed that he would attend Ranger High
School long enough to earn a teaching certificate.
He taught at various small schools in Texas & eventually enrolled
in the University of Texas, from which he received a bachelor of
arts degree in 1915. Three years later he was invited to join
the history faculty at the University. He wrote his master’s
thesis on the Texas Rangers. It was developed into The Texas
Rangers : A Century of Frontier Defense (published in 1935) .
Webb wrote or edited more than twenty books. Among his best
known is The Great Plains (1931). On the basis of this book Webb
earned his Ph. D. from the University of Texas. The Social Science
Research Council named the book as “the most outstanding contribution
to American history since World War I.” Still another of his best
known books was The Great Frontier (1952).
Webb taught for a year each at the University of London and Oxford
University, England. He was acclaimed as a teacher both in England
and in the United States. His seminars at the University of Texas
on the Great Plains and the Great Frontier were highly popular.
In addition to teaching, he served as director of the Texas State
Historical Association. As director he expanded the coverage of
the Association’s Southwestern Historical Quarterly and initiated
a project to create an encyclopedia of Texas, published in 1952
as the Handbook of Texas. Greatly expanded, the Handbook now
exists in an online version.
Webb married Jane Elizabeth Oliphant. They had one daughter. After
his first wife’s death, he married Terrell (Dobbs) Maverick. Webb
died March 8, 1963 as the result of an automobile accident.
SALOONS & CABARETS - The Old Rock Saloon (also called the Rock
Saloon) was one of Ranger’s early businesses. In its location
near the train station, it was one of the first places incoming
train passengers saw. Thus it catered to train passengers and
crews, but it also served as a community center for Ranger: it
was a meeting place as well as somewhere people could go for
entertainment and liquor. The saloon was occasionally the scene
of altercations, including some gunfights, one in which two men
were killed. Sometime in the 1890’s Ranger voted to ban liquor,
and the Old Rock Saloon became a no-liquor restaurant.
The vote to ban liquor notwithstanding, it was still accessible,
all the more so with the coming of the oil boom in 1917. Saloons,
bars, nightclubs, and cabarets flourished, and along with them
gambling places and houses of prostitution. Boyce House, an
early reporter and editor of The Ranger Daily Times, described a
typical cabaret as a bar and dance hall downstairs, with gambling
upstairs. Saloons might provide some or all of the enticements
of a cabaret but would have the more down-to-earth title “saloon.”
Virtually all such establishments had colorful names: for example,
the Blue Mouse Cabaret, the Grizzly Bear, the Winter Garden, the
Gusher, the Bucket of Blood (also called the Bloody Bucket), and
the Oklahoma Cabaret.
Larry Smits, who succeeded Hamilton Wright to become the second
editor of The Ranger Daily Times in 1919, reported that the police
chief had said that out of an estimated population of 25,000, he
figured that 1,200 were hustlers. Smits in particular noted
expensively dressed women who had on boots to the knee. They
would, he said, slog through the mud to the Winter Garden and
there change into dancing slippers “for the evening’s pleasure,
not unmixed with business.” An “entertainer” at a customer’s
table might receive a dollar tip for a song but sometimes did
much better. Some of the “entertainers” would earn as much as
$200 a week—if not quite a bit more.
Smits said that while some customers were content with cheap
corn whiskey, others had more expensive tastes: he remembered
one man in particular who ordered a quart of Canadian Club,
fresh from Juárez, for which he paid $50. Liquor was not the
only moneymaker. According to the Works Progress Administration
papers (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University
of Texas), Ranger gambling halls did a business equal to that
of the wildest days of the Klondike.
According to Boyce House, the Oklahoma Cabaret was the scene
of one of the most daring crimes during the boom. Two or three
men (accounts differ as to how many) entered the cabaret in
broad daylight, lined up a dozen customers at the bar, and
relieved them of their money. One source said the robbers got
about $10,000 in cash and a ring worth $2,000 belonging to the
proprietor. A policeman entered about that time, but the
robbers disarmed him. However, they were soon captured by
pursuers after a running gunfight in the street.
After Ranger incorporated in 1919, a local option election made
liquor illegal (again). Nonetheless it continued to be available,
even with the coming of National Prohibition in 1920. Speakeasies,
or places where liquor was illegally sold, abounded. In 1922 in
response to angry citizens, Texas Rangers seized liquor wherever
it was available. A group of citizens poured the liquor, worth
an estimated $16,000, into the streets. Why the closing of
saloons and other such places occurred so long after liquor
became illegal was a matter of speculation. In many oil boom
towns it was thought, sometimes with justification, that police
were involved in bribery and bootlegging.
Even after incorporation and Ranger had its own police force, it
was more often than not the Texas Rangers rather than the police
who were involved in law and order efforts. For example, in 1921
the Rangers and not the police raided the Commercial Hotel, famous
all over the area for its saloon and gambling operation, and
arrested 87 gamblers and seized gambling paraphernalia.
In the meantime Larry Smits, who first as a reporter and then
editor of The Ranger Daily Times, had seen much of Ranger’s
lawlessness. He commented: “I was in Ranger several months
before I knew there were real and reputable people raising
families, attending church, and perhaps making money honestly.”
After the boom Smits left Ranger, eventually ending up in New
York City. A successor at the Times said that Smits became
bored after most of the lawlessness was under control and
wanted to move on to a place that offered more excitement.
RANGER'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH - was organized in 1892 by a small
group meeting in the Methodist Church. It likely continued to
meet in the Methodist Church until it had its own building, but
it may also have met temporarily in a building on Tiffin Road,
according to a newspaper article. Rev. A.J. Burgess was the
first pastor, followed by Rev. W.A. Clack. George Bohning, W.
H. Hilliard, Joe W. Barber, and V.V. Cooper were the first
elders.
By 1894 the Presbyterian Church had built its own building on
the northwest corner of Walnut and Marston Streets, across from
the eventual location of the First Baptist Church. The cupola
and belfry were added in 1908. A newspaper article remarked
that these additions added to the looks of the building and
gave it a finished and church-like appearance.
The Ranger Church was initially affiliated with the Cumberland
Presbyterian Church, one of several denominations of the larger
church. The Presbyterian Historical Society (Philadelphia)
refers to the various “denominations” rather than “divisions”
or ‘branches.” A number of Presbyterian denominations developed
over the years. The nineteenth century especially was character-
ized by disagreements and division over theology, governance,
and the slavery issue. Among the several denominations were
splits, mergers, and reunifications, continuing on into the
twentieth century.
In 1903 the denomination called the Presbyterian Church in the
United States of America proposed a reunification with the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church. At the 1906 General Assembly
of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, a
significant majority voted for the reunification.
As a result, in that year many Cumberland Presbyterian Church
congregations in Texas voted to affiliate with the Presbyterian
Church in the United States of America. The next year the Ranger
church split, with a majority of the congregation voting to
affiliate with the latter denomination and others voting to
remain on the rolls of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church,
which had not gone away as a result of the General Assembly
vote.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Ranger was dissolved in
1921, and the First Presbyterian Church of Ranger, the name of
the church after a majority had voted to affiliate with the
Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, was
dissolved in 1952. After the final dissolution, the building
was converted into a private dwelling. (Photo courtesy of
the Ranger Historical Preservation Society)
BYRON PARRISH - Crime of all descriptions seemed to be a given
with oil boomtowns, and Ranger was no exception. There were
murders (five in one 24-hour period), knifings, brawls,
prostitution, and gambling. Saloons and cabarets flourished,
and liquor was readily available. The job of policeman was
hard enough (one Ranger policeman said that on a particularly
memorable night he had been shot at 27 times), and the position
of Chief of Police was even more difficult.
Chiefs of police came and went with some frequency in those
days. The Ranger Daily Times reported that there were 16
chiefs of police within 47 months, from February 1919 to
January 1923. Toward the end of 1919, several months
after incorporation, Ranger was looking for Chief of Police
number five, and in Byron Parrish city officials were
convinced they had found someone who was up to the job.
Byron Bruce Parrish was born in Mason, Texas May 14, 1876.
(Some sources incorrectly refer to him as Brian Parrish.)
At age 14 he left home and roamed over the Southwest with
an itinerant piano tuner. Parrish may have even tuned
pianos during that period, according to one account. A
skilled marksman, he became a peace officer in various
places mostly along the Texas border. He worked for a
time as a personal bodyguard for a Texas governor.
By 1907 he was constable in Portales, New Mexico. In that
year he shot and killed a Roosevelt County deputy sheriff
who had tried to disarm him, claiming that Parrish had
been drinking on the job. Parrish was acquitted. He
served with the Texas Rangers but resigned to go to
Ranger during the oil boom to deal in real estate and
horses. He eventually became a deputy constable, in
which position he attracted the attention of the Ranger
City Council in its search for a Chief of Police.
In his book Were You in Ranger? Boyce House, early
reporter and editor of The Ranger Daily Times, described
Parrish when he accepted the position of Chief. “… A
powerful figure, six feet in height, and weighing 200
pounds. He wore a white shirt, a four-in-hand tie,
made-to-order boots—high heeled, with fancy stitched
design--and a big white hat with a clover leaf emblem
on each side. Gold pieces were used as cuff links
and as shirt studs. A larger gold piece formed a
stickpin.” House said that Parrish could juggle a
tin can with bullets until both his six guns were empty.
Parrish was officially pointed Chief of Police Nov. 12,
1919. He pledged that he would rid the city of gambling,
soliciting, “wide-open” cabarets, and gun-toting. He
promised, “I am going to make this town a Gehenna on
earth for pistol-toters and gunmen.” He said: “Soliciting
on the streets must stop. Hotels and rooming houses will
be run in a decent manner. Drinks are being sold that
are not soft drinks. The rough stuff in the cabarets
must stop.” Ranger’s City Manager and the Commissioner
for Fire and Police declared that Parrish had the City’s
unqualified support.
A few days after his appointment Parrish and some of his
men raided every cabaret in town and searched customers
for weapons. The Ranger Daily Times reported that large
crowds gathered outside cabarets to watch the raids.
Early in his tenure as Chief, Parrish had a run-in with
a man described as the “local crime lord and king of
Ranger’s underworld.” No shots were fired, but Parrish
pistol whipped him and told him to get out of town. He
obeyed and never returned. Thanks to this and Parrish’s
other early successful efforts against lawlessness, the
murder rate plummeted. Boyce House called him “the man
who tamed Ranger.”
In spite of his initial successes, Parrish fell out of
favor within a few weeks of his appointment as Chief of
Police. City officials contended that open gambling had
continued, even with Parrish’s closing of some gambling
venues. The Ranger Daily Times ran a series of articles
opposing Parrish. One claimed, for example, that Ranger
had gained a notorious reputation because of continued
open gambling under Parrish’s regime.
The same article asked, “Why does Parrish claim he wants
the cabarets closed, when he called a meeting of several
cabaret owners in his home and suggested that they secure
an attorney to obtain an injunction restraining county
officials from closing cabarets—and offered to help them
secure this injunction?” Enraged, Parrish retaliated by
putting the Times editor in jail for a few hours. In
January 1920 the City Council put Parrish on probation,
giving him 15 days to live up to his promise to close all
gambling places.
When the postmaster complained to Parrish that one of the
mailmen had unfairly been given a ticket for a traffic
violation, Parrish slapped the postmaster. Parrish whipped
a respected businessman with a wet rope over a disagreement.
These incidents angered the public, and they demanded
Parrish’s firing. It was claimed that these violent
outbursts and irrational fits of bad temper were caused
by heavy drinking.
There was widespread interest—far outside Ranger’s city
limits—in Ranger’s oil boom and its aftermath. In May
1920 a Haskell, Oklahoma newspaper ran a news item from
Ranger: Ranger’s Chief of Police Byron Parrish was
arrested by deputy sheriffs for running a whiskey still.
He claimed that he had been framed and that he was innocent.
After he was fired, he left Ranger, and the Assistant Chief,
Gene Reynolds, took his place.
Byron Parrish died in Rankin, Texas June 17, 1931. The
Associated Press reported that the cause of death was
“excessive use of alcohol.” He had been married multiple
times. He and his first wife, Annie Gertrude Hope, had
two children together: Byron Bruce (Buck J.) Parrish
(he later changed his surname to Hope), and Cleo Vernice
Parrish.
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH - In the early 1880's and possibly
before then, a Rev. Hilliard led outdoor revivals in
Merriman, Texas, a few miles south of Ranger. These
revivals were well attended, drawing people not only
from Eastland County but also from neighboring counties.
Baptisms were in nearby Colony Creek. There was no church
in Merriman that converts could join (Merriman Baptist
Church was not founded until 1892), so Rev. Hilliard
issued certificates of baptism, and people could join
the church of their choice.
According to the First Baptist Church's Website, the
Church began meeting in 1881. A number of sources say
that the Church was organized after one of the revivals
in Merriman. The newly founded Church began meeting in
a school building, with congregants sitting on benches
with no backs. In 1885 the Church built a small frame
building on the corner of Walnut and North Austin Streets.
Several years later this site became unsatisfactory for
the Church, and the building was sold, with the buyer
converting it into a residence. Thereafter the Church
met for a time in Ray's Academy, on the corner of Mesquite
and Marston Streets.
The Academy building burned down, and the Church met
temporarily in the Methodist Church and then in the
Presbyterian Church. According to one source, the First
Baptist Church and Presbyterian Church possibly met on
alternate Sundays when they shared the same building.
About 1897 the First Baptist Church purchased a lot
from the T & P Railroad Company for $25 (some members
remembered that T & P donated half the cost of the lot).
The lot was south of the eventual location of the Gholson
Hotel and in the area that became the Hotel's parking
lot. A new building was built on the lot.
The Ladies Aid and other women and friends of the Church
(some are pictured here) served dinners and ice cream
suppers to raise money for the building fund. The
dinners, costing 25 cents each, became so popular that
railroad workers and even train passengers would buy them.
The location became increasingly unsuitable for the Church:
a cotton gin opened across the street, and a wagon yard
began operating on one side. In the meantime in 1915
the Church had bought two nearby lots for $250, planning
to build on that site. However, with the coming of the
oil boom in 1917, the two lots increased enormously in
value.
The Church had held off on building and was able to sell
the lots for about $50,000. During the oil boom the Church's
membership was about 750. With the proceeds from the sale
the Church was able to buy the lot at Walnut and North
Marston Streets in 1918 and begin building. Until the
building was completed in 1920 at a purported cost of
$100,000, the Church met under a tabernacle.
In the early 1920's a controversy in the Church arose
over the Ku Klux Klan. Some members supported the Klan
and resigned from the Church to form the Central Baptist
Church. One source reported that robed Klansmen at least
at one point marched down the aisles (the aisles of which
church is not clear). After the Klan's influence had
waned and the movement had died down, members who had
left rejoined the First Baptist Church.
In 1966 the Church dedicated a new sanctuary adjacent to
the 1920 building, and both the 1966 building and the 1920
building are still in use.
Picture caption: AN EARLY LADIES AID SOME OTHER WOMEN OF
THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. A question mark indicates that
a name is unknown.
First row, left to right: Mrs. Jace Richardson, Mrs. A.
J. Ratliff, and Mrs. ? Newberry. Second row: Mrs. ?
Barnes, Mrs. Nannie Walker, Mrs. ? Steward, Mrs. ? Connell,
Mrs. ? Hazard, and Mrs. ? Moore. Third row: Mrs. Sam
Rust, (unidentified), Mrs. Curtis Williams, Mrs. ? Brashier,
Laura Moore, Mrs. Flem Roots, and Mrs. George W. Outlaw, Sr.
ARTICLES TO CONTINUE MONTHLY
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