This is my Great-Uncle Tom Hickman, my Mother’s Daddy’s brother. He was a famous Texas Ranger and rodeo performer. Near the end of his life, he was featured in a program for the Dallas Cowboys’ 1962 game against the New York Giants. The article inside the program includes his interactions with the Duke of Wales, destined to spend a brief time as King Edward VIII. Hickman presented the Prince with a pony so that he would not “fall on his royal highness” while playing polo. The man was an entertainer.
There were not many family stories passed down, but I have collected a number of books about the Rangers and it is fun to learn about the life of the Rangers in the 1920s and 1930s. Details and many quotes can be found in this Word file.
You can find out more about the Texas Rangers at the Rangers museum in Waco, Texas. Hickman was one of the original inductees into the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame housed there.
The Ranger statue shown is not Tom Hickman. The model was a Ranger named Jay Banks. The statue was central to Dallas’ airport Love Field for years and had a plaque with the motto “One Riot, One Ranger.” One version of the story has a town sheriff frantically calling the governor to send in the Rangers to stop a riot. When the train with the reinforcements arrived, only one Ranger disembarked. The sheriff stammered, “Where are the others?” to which the Ranger replied (I’m picturing a push back of his ten-gallon hat and a squint into the distance) “One riot, one Ranger.” Like many tales from Texas, and especially the Texas Rangers, this probably has some (small) amount of truth to it. A story that I have no way of verifying or refuting is one that Hickman and his colleague Lone Wolf Gonzaullas told, that they had been asked to hunt down Bonnie and Clyde but refused to ambush a woman.
One historian recently wrote about a border conflict between Texas and Oklahoma that the Rangers mediated. The author describes the Rangers sitting around the campfire with all quiet except for “the sound of Tom Hickman telling one of his long and pointless campfire stories.” Funny, but I’d very much like to know where the attitude (it’s a long story but at least it’s pointless?) comes from. The picture on the cover of that book is shown, with Tom Hickman in the dark suit to our right. This story made its way into Time magazine: “While motorists made a twelve-mile detour to another bridge, the Texas Rangers under mighty Captain Tom Hickman answered Governor Murray’s criticism that ‘all they can do is cuss and shoot craps’ with a public demonstration of their marksmanship. Captain Hickman shooting from the hip hit 18 out of 20 matches at 50 ft. Ranger Goss, firing his pistol upside down, split a playing card at 20 yd.”
Hollywood cowboy star Tom Mix is in the pointy white hat, with Tom Hickman to his left not looking at the camera. The picture was taken at the front of the Texas State Capitol, possibly on the occasion of Mix being made an honorary Ranger. Hickman may have met Mix at rodeo shows; both spent time with the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch wild west shows (similar to Buffalo Bill’s productions).
Hickman was friends with Will Rogers, again dating back to his days with the rodeo. Rogers and Hickman are shown at a race track in Arlington. At the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston, Hickman took time off from his security duties to agitate the press with the idea of Will Rogers becoming the Vice Presidential nominee.
These links lead to more pictures with brief descriptions: