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Frank Hamer, Legendary Texas Lawman Who Bagged Bonnie and Clyde

Khalid Elhassan December 27, 2024 12 min

Hamer - Frank Hamer — Frank Hamer. Free Range America

1. Hamer’s Most Famous Accomplishment: Ending a Bandit Couple’s Depredations

Frank Hamer with singer Roy Rogers. K-Pics

Hamer formed a posse that drew personnel from various jurisdictions, and tracked the gang for months. Finally, after 102 days, he got a solid tip that Bonnie and Clyde would drive on a rural road near Gibsland, Louisiana, and set up an ambush. On the morning of May 23^rd, 1934, Clyde stopped his car at the ambush site, and he and Bonnie were almost immediately riddled with a fusillade of more than 150 bullets. That further cemented Hamer’s status as the greatest lawman of the American West. Afterwards, he worked as the head of private security for various oil and shipping companies, then rejoined the Texas Rangers in 1948. Frank Hamer retired for a final time in 1949, suffered a heat stroke in 1953, and lingered in poor health until he died in Austin in 1955.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Bossenecker, John – Texas Ranger: The Legendary Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde (2016)

History Collection – The Fake Nobleman Who Scammed Millions

True West Magazine, March 15^th, 2019 – Frank Hamer vs Bonnie and Clyde

Waco Tribune-Herald, May 30^th, 2019 – Frank Hamer Was True Texas Ranger Legend

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.