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The Lawmen and Outlaws Who Built the Old West

Khalid Elhassan August 29, 2021 35 min

Frank Hamer, left, as City Marshal of Navasota, where he began to cement his status as one of the most formidable lawmen of the American West. Pinterest

27. A Law Enforcement Legend Amidst The Slaughter

Frank Hamer’s first stint with the Texas Rangers lasted for two years, which he spent along the Mexican border. He resigned in 1908 to become City Marshal of Navasota, TX. A boomtown, Navasota was wracked by out-of-control violence, and shootouts on its main street were so frequent that in a two-year stretch more than a hundred people were killed. 24-year-old Hamer took over as the town’s top cop, and within a short time, he had re-established law and order. It was a feat helped in no small part by his willingness to add to the town’s body count.

Statue of Frank Hamer in front of Navasota’s City Hall. The Navasota Current

After a few shootouts in which he killed some miscreants, Hamer established his reputation as a law enforcement officer that bad guys did not want to mess with. After order was restored in Navasota, he moved on to a few more law enforcement stints, including Houston, before he rejoined the Texas Rangers in 1915. He was sent to patrol the border near Brownsville and arrived at the height of one of the Rangers’ most controversial stretches. It was La Matanza (“The Slaughter”) – a time of intense anti-Mexican violence that lasted from 1910 to 1920.

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.