Frank Hamer and Maney Gault: Austin's Connection to Bonnie and Clyde.

Photo of six-man "posse" who killed Bonnie & Clyde. Top, L to R: Hinton, Oakley, Maney Gault; seated, L to R: Alcorn, Jordan and Frank Hamer. Photo is public domain via Freedom of Information Act. Photo created in 1934.

  

You know the story of Bonnie and Clyde, right? Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, were notorious outlaws on the run committing robberies of banks, stores, and gas stations. Their crime spree lasted from 1932 to 1934 during which they evaded capture multiple times, often with shootouts with law enforcement. Their story was famously told in the 1967 movie "Bonnie and Clyde" starring Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker.

And you probably saw or heard about the movie "The Highwaymen". From the trailer’s tease: “The Highwaymen follows the untold true story of the legendary lawmen who brought down Bonnie and Clyde. When the full force of the FBI and the latest forensic technology aren’t enough to capture the nation’s most notorious criminals, two former Texas Rangers (Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson) must rely on their gut instincts and old school skills to get the job done.”

Costner and Harrelson are playing the roles of former Texas Rangers Frank Hamer and Maney Gault, respectively, who were responsible for tracking down and setting an ambush for Bonnie and Clyde in 1936 in Louisiana; Bonnie and Clyde were killed instantly in a hail of gunfire made famous in the slow motion scene from the 1967 movie.

But what I’d bet you didn’t know: both Hamer (1884–1955) and Gault (1886-1947) are buried in Austin Memorial Park Cemetery, 2800 Hancock Drive. They are Austin's connection to Bonnie and Clyde.

Hamer’s story is too long for this article and has been written about by many. But briefly, Hamer was born in Wilson County, Texas (just southeast of San Antonio) and the family later moved to San Saba County where he spent his early childhood on the Welch Ranch. He started his Ranger career in 1906 in West Texas and along the border, and finally transferred to Ranger Headquarters in Austin in 1921 where he was Senior Ranger Captain. Regardless of future assignments that took him across the state, Hamer made Austin his permanent home for the rest of his life. Gault was a native of Travis County. Gault’s career as a Texas Ranger started in 1929 after being recruited by Hamer, his friend and neighbor here in Austin.

The two lawmen served together as partners until 1933 when Miriam Amanda "Ma" Ferguson was elected Governor. At that time many Rangers, including Hamer, resigned and Governor “Ma” Ferguson dismissed or fired the rest over allegations of corruption and excessive violence within the organization. Alternatively it may have been in retribution for the Rangers backing her opponent, incumbent Governor Ross Sterling. Or it may have been a bit of both. So Hamer and Gault were not technically Texas Rangers at the time they were recruited to track Bonnie and Clyde in 1934. The Texas Rangers were of course later reinstated and are with us today. Like Walker Texas Ranger.

Hamer’s obituary (The Austin American, 11 Jul 1955) says that Texas historian Walter Prescott Webb used Hamer as a prime example in an account of the Texas Rangers saying Hamer's service covered a "period of transition in Texas from frontier simplicity to modern complexity." And if you know anything about Texas Ranger history starting from the Republic of Texas era forward, you know Webb’s description is spot on.

Hamer and Gault are buried a stone's throw from one another in Austin Memorial, graves marked with the standard Texas Ranger cross that marks all Ranger burials. Established first as a private cemetery in 1927, the city purchased Austin Memorial Park in 1941 for the price of $56,000, making it a public cemetery. Hamer and Gault are just a few of Austin's well-known citizens buried there. 

Read More

 

Captain Francis Augustus “Frank or Pancho” Hamer on Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2366/francis-augustus-hamer

 

Capt Benjamin Maney Gault on Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7874454/benjamin-maney-gault

 

Francis A. Hamer. Texas Ranger Hall of Fame https://www.texasranger.org/Hall-of-Fame/Hamer-Francis

 

 

 

George W. Allen Memorial Park. First Travis County Park in Austin's City Limits.

NOTE: This is an adaptation of an article written for the Northwest Hills Civic Association (NWACA) newsletter.

The NWACA neighborhood has just one Travis County Park: Allen Park at 6413 Westside Drive. And, Allen Park was the first Travis County Park inside the Austin City Limits. It is a little known jewel of a park in the NWACA neighborhood; let’s look at the story of Allen Park.

From the Travis County Parks website:

“Allen Park is a 10-acre park consisting of a limestone plateau covered by a Juniper and Oak woodland interspersed with small, semi-open grassland areas. It is mainly used for low density recreational activities such as picnicking and hiking. The park offers a natural setting with panoramic views of the city to the east. The neighborhood church uses the park annually for Easter sunrise services.”

The park is technically known as the George W. Allen Memorial Park. George W. Allen was born in Jasper, Georgia in 1869. He came to Texas at age 15. As a lawyer, he moved to Austin in 1891 where he lived until his death in 1911. His many accolades as a lawyer in Austin included Assistant City Attorney. At his death the news reported the Bar Association, at a special meeting, adopted a resolution of "Respect and Memory" for George W. Allen.

The story now moves ahead a few years. Wilbur Price Allen (1879-1956) was George’s cousin. Wilbur graduated from U.T. Law School, and was on the U.T. Boards of Regents in 1917. At various times in his career he served as director of the American National Bank in Austin, national president of Sigma Chi Fraternity, president of the Austin Baseball Club, and president of the Texas League.

Without doing a deed dive on county deeds, apparently after George W. Allen’s death, Wilbur Price Allen inherited or acquired property part of which Wilbur Price in 1945 sold to Travis County for use as a quarry for caliche, gravel and rock. Today the east side of the park at 6110 Balcones Dr. has a gate that opens on to what looks like remnants of part of the quarry. The deed stipulated that after the county was done mining the property it would be dedicated as a park for public use.

The story again moves forward a few years to 1977, and Wilbur Price’s son, Wilbur George Allen, entered dialogue with Travis County about the property becoming a park. And so it was that Sunday, May 1^st, 1978 Allen Park had its grand opening ceremony cosponsored in part by the Northwest Austin Civic Association. In attendance were Congressman J.J. (Jake) Pickle, Precinct 2 Commissioner Bob Honts, and U.T. football greats Earl Campbell and Brad Shearer.

The Parks history was not without a few hiccups. In 1996 the park had apparently become rundown to the point where the county was considering abandonment. The heirs of George W. Allen, likely led by Wilbur George Allen, concurred that if the park could not be maintained it should be closed or moved. Luckily that did not happen, issues were addressed, and today Allen Park remains a largely unknown jewel in our neighborhood.[1]

Sources; Read More

Funeral Of G. W. Allen: Last Sad Rites Over Body Of Deceased Lawyer, The Austin Statesman, Jun 22, 1911

George W. Allen Dead: Prominent Lawyer Of This City Passes Away, The Austin Statesman, Jun 21, 1911

U.T. Board of Regents, William Price Allen, https://www.utsystem.edu/board-of-regents/former-regents/wilbur-price-allen

Wilbur Allen Funeral Dated On Saturday, The Austin Statesman, Aug 3, 1956

Travis County Archives, memos re: Allen Park, 1977

County Opens Park. The Austin American Statesman, May 2, 1978

Allen Park Opening. Austin American-Statesman, 27 Apr 1978, Thu, Page 15

Notice of Proposed Abandonment. Austin American-Statesman, 29 Sep 1996, Sun, Page 29

County Seeks to Move Allen Park. Austin American-Statesman, 28 Aug 1996, Wed, Page 18

 

---

[1] Thanks to Christy Costlow and Charles Bergh with Travis County Archives and Travis County Parks for help researching this article.

LIDAR for History and Archeology

NOTE: This is an adaptation of an article written for the Northwest Hills Civic Association (NWACA) newsletter.

For orientation, black dot is intersection of Far West Blvd. and Mesa Drive in Northwest Hills. Click to enlarge.

You’ve probably heard of LIDAR. It’s what enables many self-driving cars to sense their surroundings. OK, except maybe Elon Musk who thinks it’s "expensive, ugly and unnecessary". But even he may be re-thinking LIDAR. LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) works by emitting laser pulses, then measuring the time it takes for the pulses to travel to objects and back, using this information to create detailed 3D models of objects.

But rather than mounted to a car, LIDAR can also be mounted below an aircraft, drone or even satellite to build digital elevation models of the earth’s surface; “bare earth” models excluding trees, buildings, and other surface objects. This has been a game-changer in fields like archeology enabling the detection and mapping of features – old trails, structures, burial depressions, geologic features – that are hidden beneath dense vegetation and hence not visible in aerial photos, and which can also be difficult to access and survey in person.

In the news a commonly reported use in archeology has been the detection and mapping of lost Mayan cities in the dense jungles of Central America where many Mayan ruins are hidden beneath the jungle canopy. Here in Travis County we have a similar problem; rather than jungle, we have trees and other vegetation covering much of the county, for example in the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve (BCP) west of our neighborhood. While a preserve now, this was home to Native Americans for thousands of years, and starting in the 19^th century European American settlers constructing ranches and farmsteads.

I recently had a chance to examine several sites in the BCP with USGS LIDAR data. One site we visited a few years ago, about 6 miles northwest of the neighborhood, was a collection of stacked limestone walls. It was quite a hike reaching them through a thicket of trees and brush, and once there it was hard to make sense of the layout. Oral interviews collected by archeologists when the area was acquired by Travis County for inclusion in the BCP suggested the site had been a stage stop along a historic road from old Jollyville[1] to Anderson’s Mill, with nearby springs for passengers to enjoy. With LIDAR the assemblage of old roads to and from the site, layout of corrals and buildings, and location of springs in nearby rock shelters became very apparent.

A drawback with LIDAR is that the data reflects the time at which it was collected. Since it is a relatively new technology, many areas you’d like to investigate have already been developed, hence the LIDAR is reflecting the development, not features of a historic site. Still with areas like BCP and other preserves like those in our neighborhood’s canyon lands it is a powerful tool for “seeing” what is there hiding beneath the dense overgrowth.

LIDAR data is publicly available in varying resolutions through the USGS. Included here is a birds eye LIDAR view of our own NWACA neighborhood. Enjoy.

---

[1]For more on Jollyville, see What's Up with Jollyville Road?