Back in the Day:
Time was, once, when a lawman in the West had little to back him up but a firm voice, a steely gaze, grim determination, and a revolver hung low in a well-oiled holster. Those were the times when a town marshal or a sheriff’s deputy’s continued employment, not to mention their continued drawing of breath, depended less on local prosecutors and more on their gun hand. They had to be fast, they had to be accurate, most of all, they had to be willing to pull the trigger - no hesitation.
Some of these old lawmen were gunfighters first and foremost, and some of them crossed back and forth over the line between lawman and outlaw a few times. But one of the last gunfighters never wavered in what he saw as his duty. He served the law, and there can be no question about it. This was a man who, as a Texas Ranger and in several other roles, ended the depredations of many a bandit and desperado. But history remembers him best for one thing: When he and his friend and partner, Maney Gault, put an end to the depredations of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
His Origins
Francis Augustus Hamer was born in Wilson County, Texas, in 1884, one of five sons, all but one of whom became Texas Rangers. Frank grew up on a ranch in San Saba County, Texas, and while he left school after the sixth grade, he had a sharp mind, an aptitude for math, and a keen interest in the local Indian nations. As a young man, Frank worked in his father’s blacksmith shop and as a wrangler on the ranch.
Then, in 1905, at age 21, Frank captured a horse thief. It’s unclear what happened to the horse thief (although we have a pretty good idea), but the local sheriff recommended young Frank join the Lone Star State’s premiere law-enforcement arm: The Texas Rangers.
His Amazing Career
Frank Hamer joined the Texas Rangers in 1906 and was sent to Ranger Company C, then patrolling the Mexican border. Frank appeared to have had itchy feet; in 1908, he left the Rangers to take the job of town marshal in Navasota, Texas, a violent and unruly place. At age 24, Frank Hamer landed on the town like a ton of bricks, and (we presume) with a steely gaze and ready gun hand, settled that town down. Later, he worked as a special investigator for Houston Mayor Horace Rice, then as a Deputy Sheriff in Kimble County. But no matter what job Frank Hamer took, those who knew him said he was proof of the old Texas Ranger maxim: “One riot, one Ranger.”
In 1915, Frank rejoined the Texas Rangers, just in time for the Mexican Revolution. Later, after a career that wasn’t without its questionable moments – at one point Frank was accused of physically threatening a Texas state representative who was looking into abuses of authority by members of the Rangers – Frank joined the Rangers’ efforts in 1922 to wipe out the Ku Klux Klan.
But Frank Hamer’s real claim to fame came with the notorious rampage of two Texas outlaws: Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
The Man-Hunt
Frank Hamer had married Gladys Sims in 1917, a widow who had been left a considerable inheritance. By the time Bonnie & Clyde began their notorious murder spree, Frank was living quietly with his wife, having resigned from the Texas Rangers in 1932 after the election of Texas Governor Miriam “Ma” Ferguson. “When they elected a woman governor, I quit,” he was reported to have said.
Then, in 1934, Bonnie and Clyde broke four of their followers out of the Eastham Prison Farm, leaving one guard dead and another wounded. The administrator of Texas’s prison system, Lee Simmons, turned to the old gunfighter, Frank Hamer, to hunt down Bonnie & Clyde and put an end to them. Simmons reportedly told Frank to “put them on the spot, know you’re right, and shoot everybody in sight.”
With his old Ranger friend B.M. “Maney” Gault, Frank began a multi-state pursuit of the criminals, largely ignoring his commission from Lee Simmons that limited him to the state of Texas.
By the spring of 1934, the reputation of Bonnie & Clyde, who had attained the status of folk heroes, was tarnished by their high-profile murders of two Texas Highway Patrol officers near Grapevine and the execution of another, Constable Calvin Campbell, a single father.
The culmination of the manhunt came on a country road near Gibsland, Louisiana. It was Day 102 of the pursuit.
At the outset, Frank Hamer was aware of the dangers presented by the heavily armed Barrow/Parker gang; Clyde Barrow was known to be fond of the Browning Automatic Rifle. Frank Hamer, before beginning the hunt, had outfitted himself splendidly with, among other things (reports vary), a Thompson submachine gun and a Colt Monitor, a slightly modified version of the Browning Automatic Rifle. But when the seminal moment came, Frank had in his hands a rifle he had owned for some time, a Remington Model 8 with an extended 20-round magazine.
An ambush was set up after the father of Henry Methvin, a member of Clyde’s gang, contacted the local sheriff, Henderson Jordan, seeking to get his son disentangled with the gang. He admitted that Bonnie and Clyde would be visiting the Methvins at their Bienville Parish, Louisiana home. Clyde had designated the Methvins’ home as a rally point in the event the gang got separated.
Read More: Sunday Gun Day Vol. II Ep. LII - Remington's Model 8: The 'Piano Leg'
Sunday Gun Day Vol. II Ep. XXXVIII - The Browning Automatic Rifle
On the morning of May 23, 1934, the posse, consisting of Frank Hamer, Maney Gault, Texas deputies Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton, and from Bienville Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff Henderson Jordan and his deputy Prentiss Oakley, set up an ambush along a country road leading to the Methvin home. They convinced Ivy Methvin to park his truck along the road, hoping Clyde would stop to see what was wrong.
They were right. At 9:15 AM, the posse heard Clyde’s Ford V-8 coming down the road. When Clyde slowed at the sight of Methvin’s truck, the posse opened fire.
It’s unclear who fired first, but the result was a fusillade of automatic weapons fire. The posse emptied their rifles, then shotguns, and finally peppered the V-8 with pistol fire until the car rolled into a ditch. Neither Bonnie nor Clyde was able to fire a shot. Around 150 rounds were fired. Hinton and Alcord later said:
Each of us six officers had a shotgun and an automatic rifle, and pistols. We opened fire with the automatic rifles. They were emptied before the car got even with us. Then we used shotguns. There was smoke coming from the car, and it looked like it was on fire. After shooting the shotguns, we emptied the pistols at the car, which had passed us and ran into a ditch about 50 yards on down the road. It almost turned over. We kept shooting at the car even after it stopped. We weren't taking any chances.
Bonnie Parker’s body had at least 26 bullet wounds, many of which would have been immediately fatal. Clyde had 17 bullet wounds, again, mostly fatal.
Posted rewards for Bonnie & Clyde amounted to around $26,000, a substantial sum indeed in 1934, but most of the reward posters reneged. In the end, each member of the posse received $200 and was allowed to keep whatever goods they found in Clyde’s car. Frank Hamer, reportedly, took most of the guns.
In 1948, Frank rejoined the Texas Rangers briefly, during the contested 1948 Texas Senate election. A former Texas Governor, Coke Stevenson, was one of the candidates, and he called on the Rangers to go with him to the Texas State Bank in Alice, Texas, to examine what was expected to be a false vote tally. Frank approached the bank with Stevenson, only to find two groups of scowling, armed men. Once again, his grim demeanor and steely gaze served Frank well; he glared at the armed men and said one word: “Git.” They got.
Oh, and Stevenson’s opponent in the election, by the way, was named Lyndon B. Johnson.
Frank Hamer, for the rest of his life, refused to make any public statement about the Bonnie & Clyde affair. The one known remark he made was to observe that he hated to shoot a woman, but that he knew it was her or the posse.
His Golden Years
Frank Hamer went home after the Bonnie & Clyde affair and went into private security, acting as a strikebreaker and investigator for the Texas oil companies. In 1953, he suffered a heat stroke and died two years later. He is buried in Austin’s Memorial Park Cemetery, not far from his friend Maney Gault. In his long career, he was reportedly shot 17 times and was said to have killed between 53 and 70 people, including Bonnie & Clyde.
The rather wonderful Netflix film “The Highwayman” is a pretty good portrayal of the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde, with Kevin Costner putting in a respectable portrayal of Frank Hamer, alongside Woody Harrelson as Maney Gault. I’d give a lot to be able to visit the gun shop where Frank Hamer buys his arsenal. As for the 1967 Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway grenade, in which Frank Hamer was depicted as an incompetent buffoon, the less said about it, the better.
Take a look at our cities today, at the unrest, the unruliness, the outright chaos on the streets of our major cities; I’ve written a lot about that topic in my “The Downfall of America’s Cities” series. It’s enough to make you wonder if we need a few Frank Hamers today; men with that same grim determination, men with a steady gun hand, men who will, above all things, stand for the law.
It's worth considering.
