OT- Texas Rangers in Real Photo. pic

[rangerider7]

I just got this photo. These Texas Rangers were in Capt. Lon Willis Company M, located on the Nueces Strip during the "Bandit War" period (1912-1918). I have not seen many with the rangers riding towards the camera. I have another photo that has all the Texas Rangers of Co. M on their standing horses facing the camera. It is a large cabinet mounted photo. This one is a real photo postcard. This period of Texas Ranger history is somewhat controversial, but I thought y'all might want to see it.

[Hobie]

I think Charles touched on that several months ago. Thanks for the photo!

[awp101]

Nice! We may have to start an old photo thread.

This period of Texas Ranger history is somewhat controversial, but I thought y'all might want to see it.

I feel I should know the answer, but why is it controversial?

[rangerider7]

awp101, this was a time that a large contingent of Mexicans, some U.S. citizens some not, wanted to take the land south of the Nueces strip in Texas and give it back to Mexico. The Nueces Strip is an imaginary line running from Laredo to Corpus Christi. There was also a Texas-Mexican Railway that ran along it. It was called the San Diego Plan because that was the city in Texas along the strip that was the center of the rebellion. When Pancho Villa invaded Columbus the U.S. became alarmed. The army sent Pershing over into Mexico to capture Villa, but he was unsuccessful. At the same time the Texas Rangers quickly expanded by 9, 10 companies or more. These quickly recruited men did not all abide by the law when it came to identifying true Mexican Bandits. It is said that many of the Mexicans killed were not bandits but innocent men. There are lawsuits going on today by the descendants of these men. I hope this helps. If anybody knows a more accurate account please feel free to add to this thread.

[awp101]

Thanks RR7!

I've always heard about the Columbus, NM raid but I'd nefer heard about this other incident.

[mescalero1]

Can't remember how many years ago it was, but:
my mother's husband & his friend flew out from N.M. to pick me up & take me back for some R&R.
We flew to his place in Columbus N.M., it is one of those houses where you land the plane and taxi up to your private hanger.
In the courtyard of this house, under or in a wood & glass cabinet; is the black Dodge command car General Pershing used in his pursuit of Pancho Villa, it is well preserved and in very good condition.
I think there is cool stuff like this all over the southwest, have seen a lot of it.
As people make posts these things come back to me, I had not thought about or told anyone about that car for some years

[Ysabel Kid]

I love all these great old photos!

[C. Cash]

Great photo and thanks for sharing it. Please keep em coming!

[Jaguarundi]

Great photo and thanks for sharing it. Please keep em coming!

+1 !

[GANJIRO]

Here's another, he's real isn't he?

[gamekeeper]

Fascinating, thanks for posting.

[dr walker]

Great shot, Thanks for posting

[bogus bill]

When I was a kid my folks had a old friend that was a solider under pershing that chased villa. He told me a number of storys about it. I remember him describeing how they walked so much that when they took their boots and socks off, "the hide" would come off with her" etc.
He might have been lied to himself, but he related that they did have a scout that DID find villa sleeping in a cave with some men and sneaked in and stold villa,s rifle to prove it!
Our old friends name was ray smith. I dont know if it was before or after his sevice but he also told storys that he and some friends spent about a year hunting etc in the rockys and never seen a road!
Knew him back in wisconsin in the late 40s. I belive dad had a aunt that was married to rays brother.

[Charles]

San Diego Texas is the County seat of Duval and the 1915 "Plan de San Diego" was name for the town. There were a series of these documents that we more on the form of a maifesto calling the the establishment of an independent Tejano nation in what is now South Texas. Among other things it called for the summary execution of every Anglo male over the age of 16. This so called plan originated in a Mexican jail and not San Diego. The language had some strong marxists undertones, although the whole things was mosty attributed to the followers of the deposed Mexican president Carranza.

There were several cross border raids about this time including an attack on Norias (on the King Ranch) and the robbery and killing of the passengers on a train. There has never been any firm connection between these raids and the Plan de San Diego. It may have just been bandit raids, which were not uncommon along the border and still take place from time to time.

The Governor sent a motly crew of gunmen organized as Rangers to South Texas, and they summarily executed more than 300 Mexicans or Mexican Americans. For a while there was what amounted to a race war in South Texas that created economic and social havock. It all ended in 1916. This is a very dark blot on Ranger history. Just one of several.

As a boy and young man growing up in deep South Texas, this was still a living memory among many. It was a sad, hard and bloody time.

The Germans had some agents provacatuer in Mexico about this time and throught out WWI trying to stir up trouble on the US Mexico border. What role, if any, they played in all of this I don't know.

[mescalero1]

Charles,
Some of this sentiment found it's way up north to the Texas, New Mexico, Mexico lines as well.

[Charles]

Mescalero... There are still a few radical "Chicano" types, forted up in Universities, that call for Texas, new Mexico, Arizona and California to be spun off into a seperate Latino nation. I believe they call it "Atzatlan". They are even willing to use violence to do this. They have very little support and mostly just grab headlines from time to time and get the gringos all spun up.

The Plan de San Diego is entirely dead yet.

[DixieBoy]

Rangerider7 - That's an incredible photo. I've got to ask you, where do you find these jewels?

I can add a little bit to this, being that I've been bitten by the Texas History bug in a big way over the last few years. There is SO much of it, and alot of it is nothing short of fascinating.

There is a book about these very times we're talking about here, called Texas Rangers: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910 - 1920. I've been reading excerpts of it and I think I'm going to have to plunk down the cash for yet another Texas book. What you all have covered here so far is on the money as far as the violence along the border during those times. In particular, those hastily organized Ranger comapanies were known to be very indiscriminate in their killings. From all I've read, there still is an awful lot of bad blood and hard feelings about unjustified killings back then. But not all of the killing was done by Texas Rangers.

The problem for the Americans seems to have been determining who was a revolutionary and who was a bandit. Sometimes the Mexicans raising Cain down along the border were one and the same. Pancho Villa, and his raid on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916 upset off America in a huge way. Villa and his men killed about a dozen and a half of the town's citizens and burned much of it. They were driven off when smoke from the fires alerted a nearby Army garrison. Villa lost alot of men once the Army came on the scene. But America as a country, and President Woodrow Wilson in particular, were fuming mad over this.

And so they organized what came to be called the Punitive Expedition, led by General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing. Pershing chased Villa through much of Sonora and Chihuahua provinces in northern Mexico, and came home 11 months later without having caught up with him. The only member of the Punitive Expedition to have any luck was a young staff officer at the time by the name of George Patton (yes, THAT George Patton).

Patton was bored to tears working as a staff officer, and when word came back to camp that a group of Villistas were holed up in a nearby village, Patton took two men and a vehicle in after them. A shootout followed, and Patton ended up taking out two of the three of Villa's men killed that day. He lashed the body of one of them, "General" Julio Cardenas, over the hood of the vehicle to bring back to camp as a trophy. Patton was the only one to have any real success in the whole affair, and he became famous back in the states for this. Afterwards, Pershing called Patton "my little Bandito."

This stuff going on along the border actually played a part in getting America involved in World War One. Most folks know that the German's resumption of the practice of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (as opposed to following the old honorable system of boarding suspect vessels) was the major reason for American entry into WWI in April 1917.

But another incident, the uncovering of The Zimmerman Telegram, played a big part too. The German ambassador in Mexico was sent a cable by his superiors back home in Germany which authorized him to make the Mexican government a deal. This was in January 1917. The deal was basically this: If Mexico would agree to sponsor all sorts of trouble along the U.S. - Mexico border (which would keep the U.S. occupied and unable to enter the War in Europe), then Germany would agree to provide military assistance to Mexico once Germany had won the war in Europe. Germany would then help Mexico regain Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and all the territory she had lost to the U.S. in the Mexican-American War.

The British had intercepted this telegram, and for a while, some people thoght it might be fake, a British ploy to get America into the war on the Allied side. It turned out not to be fake, and to this day this remains one of the lesser known incidents which pushed America into the First World War. Remember, Americans were much less tolerant of what they considered nonsense back then.

There's so much fascinating history down you guys way in Texas, especially along the border. When you think about German agents, provacateurs, down there, sponsoring trouble and arming rebels/bandits, it is almost straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. I remember a Bart Skelton article in Guns and Ammo mag a few years back where he was talking about an old Mauser pistol that a Mexican acquaintance of his owned, and the story of it. The pistol dated back to this decade, 1910-1920.

This is fascinating stuff. You Texas guys are lucky. As a matter of fact, I've been considering joining you for a couple years now. - DixieBoy

[O.S.O.K.]

Mescalero... There are still a few radical "Chicano" types, forted up in Universities, that call for Texas, new Mexico, Arizona and California to be spun off into a seperate Latino nation. I believe they call it "Atzatlan". They are even willing to use violence to do this. They have very little support and mostly just grab headlines from time to time and get the gringos all spun up.

The Plan de San Diego is entirely dead yet.

I thought it was "Mazitlan" - perhaps both? Regardless, come and take it....



And the German's being involved in stirring things up with Mexico is what finally got us into WWI. There was a German communication that was intercepted and decifered by the Brits and it was a plan to give Mexico a portion of southwest US territory for organizing an attack. That's what finally spurred Wilson to ask for a declaration of war.

Thanks for posting that pic rangerider!

[mescalero1]

Charles is correct,
but I am not sure about the spelling, I thought it was Aztlan.
Thier motto is " tierra Y libertad "
this means " land and liberty "
Some years ago I heard more about this, but it seems to have tapered off.
Remember when you wrote about the old Dons keeping " order on the border "?
That was the way it was when I was young, but this younger generation has no direction, and seem to be bent on violence & destuction.
I wonder what role that old Dodge played in the Villa thing.

[Charles]

Dixieboy... I have the book to which you refer. It is very good, even though it was written by some New Mexico scholars IIRC. I guess I have about every book on the Texas Rangers published in the last 50 years.

If you are only going to have one, Walter Prescott Webb's book is the place to start.

If you want a hot time on the Border come on down. The violence has not been this bad for almost 100 years. There is open warfare going on between the various drug cartels and between the cartels and the Mexican Federal Goverment. Lots of gunfights and pitched battles with belt fed automatice weapons, grenade launchers and such,right downtown in the Mexican border cities. We are all holding out breath, cause it just might spill accoss the border. Last week, the Mexican Chiefs of Police from three border towns fled to our side and asked for assalyum (sorry about the spelling). There are as good as dead if they stay in Mexico.

The fence and the litigation continue apace. The construction is scheduled to start next month although that is much in doubt. If things go as planned I will loose my parking place at the University. The fence will be built on the Levee, but the Feds want 60 feet on either side of the Levee for access and whatnot. The parking lot for the College of Business is built firm against the levee, so the feds will take half our parking lot. I have never seen a wetback yet in the parking lot, so this will probably be a huge waste of money. Oh well,, our tax dollars at work.

[DixieBoy]

Charles - I didn't realize that you are "right there." Watch your 6 compadre. I had a student just last semester, a beautiful 30-something single mom from Juarez. She's been here in the states for ten years, but still has some family down there. We talked some, and she related to me how worried she is about them.

From all I've read about the border, it is just as you say. It's pathetic how the low-life dope runners have literally taken over, with even the law scared of them. This is the sort of stuff that needs to be on the national news every night for folks across the country to see. The slimeballs who have made neighborhoods on both sides of the border such dangerous places to live, well, those slimeballs need to go.

Makes you wonder if the politicos at the top of the food chain are being paid off to let this all go on. Even if the Mexican government doesn't care about the border, they owe it to their own people to stop this stuff.

Sorry for tilting at windmills. But I've always had a hatred for bullies, and that's what I see these lowlifes as, nothing but bullies.

As for the Webb book, it was one of the first I bought, and I still go back to it. I like the way he wrote. I sent off for Rip Ford's Texas a few weeks back on the strength of what you guys had to say about it. And there will be more Texas tomes to come. Please let me know if you have any others you think I should know about. I really do love the Texas history.
And I do believe that a move for me, to somewhere out west is in my future a couple years up the road. I love Florida in a big way, but it is just getting way too crowded here.

Still wondering where our friend finds these great old Texas Ranger photos. - DixieBoy

[Charles]

Dixieboy.. I have lived on the Border most of my life. I was raised here and will die here. Border life isn't for everbody, but for those of us who understand unique culture and way of life, there is no other place we would rather be.

The Mexican goverment really doesnt have control over that country like most folks think. The formation of PRI ( Party of Revolutionary Instututions) brought Mexico out of the bloodbath and caos of the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s. PRI ruled Mexico with dictatorial powers for generations. Every individual on the public payrole owed their job to the political patronage of PRI and the "reins of PRIs power) stretched down to the lowest beat cop on the corner. There was structure and order Mexican fashion.

About 15 years ago another party (PAN) began to win a few local elections. Well the cat got out of the bag and little by little PRI went down the tubes, leaving a powder vacumn over the entire country.

The former PRI functionaries became free lance crooks and the drug cartels moved into the power vacumn.

Mexico is in political caos and with that comes rampant lawlessness.

Democracy doesn't always serve the national good in some countries. We are seeing that in Iraq, Mexico and many places in the world. In many cultures, a King or Dictator with a heart for the people is the best way to go.

My part of Texas is tropical and has a better climate than Florida. Brush up your Spanish and come on down.

[mescalero1]

Yeah, it's a mess down there.
My ex-first love ran out of her meds, and was afraid to go to Palomas for a re-fill; filling the script at an American pharmacy is considerably more expensive.
She told me the Deming paper ran a story about the local body shop in Palomas, that had been in buisiness for 28 years, the name of the man that owned it , etc.
All the shop owners in the border towns are hurting because people are afraid to patonize them.

[DixieBoy]

Charles - The history of Mexico makes me dizzy. There have been short periods of calm and stability since they won their independence in 1820-1821, but for the most part part it's been turmoil.

Forgive for my forgetfulness right now; it's been a really long day and my brain is half dead. I'm trying to remember the name of the president Mexico had in the latter part of the 1800's who ruled for almost 30 years. He has been equated to a dictator, but he presided over one of the most stable and prosperous times in fairly recent Mexican history. The name is escaping me now.

My Spanish is basically non-existent. I'd have to learn from scratch. As kids, we lived in Mass., so we all learned French (being so close to Canada). Lot of good that's done me.

I'm going to stay tuned to events down your way. Within the next couple years I'm very likely going to relocate to the great west. I'm really attracted to Wyoming, based mainly on the wide open spaces and the lack of lots of people. But...you've got to earn a living, and most of what I read about the job scene in Wyoming is oil-related. Drilling, riggers, etc. I'm getting too old for that stuff. And, truth be told, I've wondered if after 30+ years of Florida living, if I wouldn't freeze my tail off out there, and end up running back to FL with my tail between my legs.

I'm sure I can pull off the move, I just want it to be the right move once I make it. In the meantime, keep the Texas news and history coming. I love it ! - DixieBoy