Kilgore, Texas, 1931. You walk down the wooden sidewalk in the crisp, muggy air of an East Texas spring. The town is crowded with all manner of people, mostly oil field workers. The smell and taste of oil is thick in the air as a breeze blows amid the buildings. The clanging and noise of oil field equipment is heard twenty four hours a day.

Women and children occasionaly thread their way through the crowds, trying not to be jostled into the street. The recent rains have left the dirt streets a quagmire of mud as oil field trucks and vehicles of all types try to make their way down the narrow roads. A large truck loaded with equipment grinds it's way through the slime, slinging mud into the air as it's large tires dig into the brown mud. A car struggles to make headway, horns honk as others try to get by. Some of the heaviest trucks are stuck and men curse and holler at each other as they try to clear the streets.

You pass by professional men in suits and workers in pants and shirts; some still grimmy from their hard work on the oil rigs. The stores along the streets are busy as people go in and out their doors, trying to carry on their routines amid the bustling town.

There seems to be a crowd gathering at the end of one of the side streets in front of one of the new wooden buildings. You stop and look in the direction of the noise and see some shady looking men seemingly arguing with each other. The curses echo down the street. Someone passing by glances in that direction and murmers, "More drunks or dope peddlers. Uh oh, they're in for it now." The stranger stops and stares at two men walking facing you on the opposite side of the street.

You turn your head in the direction the stranger is staring at. Then you see him. Coming down the street is a neatly dressed man in a flat brimmed Stetson hat. His shirt is olive drab with a snug collar pinned beneath an excellant cravet with a long bar-pin. Around his waist, on a heavy belt held by an enormous emblem-buckle of gold and silver, hang a pair of engraved Colt automatics. His boots are shiny and clean, his jaw set and his gaze steely eyed. On his chest you can make out the distinctive badge of the Texas Rangers. His fellow Ranger walks beside him and passersby make way for them as they head in the direction of the disturbance down the street. Lone Wolf Gonzaullas is in town and those criminals who haven't already left after his warning will be dealt with swiftly.

After his arrival, he had said in a public statement, "Crime may expect no quarter in Kilgore. Gambling houses, slot machines, whiskey rings and dope peddlers might as well save the trouble of opening, because they will not be tolerated in any degree. Drifters and transients have their choice of three things: engaging in a legitimate business, getting out of town or going to jail!"

The Texas Rangers are the oldest law enforcement body with state wide jurisdiction in the United States, having been formed in 1823. Stepen F. Austin hired the first ten Rangers that year to protect the settlers in his colony. Fighting Indians, Mexican bandits along the border and outlaws, the Texas Rangers have grown and matured into the elite investigative branch of the Texas Department of Public Safety. With decades of experienced, hand picked law officers and state of the art equipment and crime lab, the Rangers investigate the most difficult crime cases and work with local authorities to keep law and order wherever needed. When a Texas Ranger appears on the scene, it is known that law enforcement is at it's finest. More Texas Ranger websites are below. (Don't miss what we have on this website and the second page about "Lone Wolf", though.)