Gillett, James Buchanan (1856–1937)

James Buchanan Gillett, Texas Ranger, author, and rancher, was born in Austin on November 4, 1856. He was the son of James S. and Elizabeth (Harper) Gillett. He had two sisters. The children were sent to private schools since there were no public schools in Austin at that time. Jim found them irksome, and in 1868 he quit school for a life in the outdoors. Because of his mother's ill health, the family moved to Lampasas in 1872. This was cattle country, and in 1873 he left home to work for nearby cattlemen. After his father's death in April 1874, he left for Menardville (later Menard). There, on June 1, 1875, Gillett joined the Texas Rangers, Daniel Webster Roberts's Company D, Frontier Battalion. He was accepted largely on the basis of his father’s service as adjutant general in the 1850s. He spent six years with the Rangers on the frontier, including service with companies A, E, and C. Gillett fought Kiowas, Comanches, and Lipan Apaches as well as cattle thieves and outlaws. He was stationed in El Paso County in 1881, when, accompanied by Ranger George Lloyd, he went to Zaragoza, Chihuahua, without extradition papers to capture Eunofrio Baca, who had murdered the newspaper editor A. M. Conklin in Socorro, New Mexico. Gillett grabbed the killer and galloped to the Rio Grande, four miles away, with men from the town chasing and shooting at them. Though Gillett turned Baca over to the sheriff in Socorro, Baca was lynched by a mob. There were international rumblings, and the Mexican government sent a complaint to Washington, but after a short time the furor diminished.

On February 10, 1881, Gillett married Helen Baylor, daughter of Capt. George W. Baylor, his company commander. They had two sons, one of whom, James Harper Gillett, became the first American bullfighter in Mexico (under the name Harper Lee). The marriage ended in divorce. In December 1881 Gillett resigned from the Texas Rangers and was appointed assistant city marshal of El Paso. In June 1882 he was appointed marshal. On April 1, 1885, after having clubbed a city councilman with a six-shooter, he left the El Paso marshal's office and became manager of the Estado Land and Cattle Company. He held this position for almost six years, then resigned to ranch for himself. On May 1, 1889, Gillett married Lou Chastain in San Marcos. They had seven children.

Gillett soon returned to West Texas where he ranched the O6 and Altuda spreads south of Alpine. In 1904 he purchased a farm outside Roswell, New Mexcio, that he operated for three years before returning to Texas to buy and run the Barrell Springs Ranch, where he raised registered Hereford cattle. In 1923 he retired from ranching and moved to Marfa. There he was a member of the Alpine Masonic lodge and was a thirty-second-degree Scottish Rite Mason. He also served as a director of the Marfa National Bank and, for many years, as president of the Bloys Camp Meeting. Gillett helped organize the West Texas Historical Association, was instrumental in organizing the Highland Hereford Breeders Association, and was a member of the First Christian Church.

He wrote Six Years with The Texas Rangers (1921); it was republished in 1926 by Yale Press and in 1976 by the University of Nebraska Press. In 1928 it was re-issued under the title The Texas Rangers and was used as a textbook in the public schools of seventeen states. Gillett’s autobiography was quoted in the decision regarding the case of Neff v. Elgin (1925), which addressed an earlier suit challenging the constitutionality of the Rangers. On March 18, 1925, Texas Appellate Court Judge C. J. Fly, in addition to case law, quoted and cited Gillett in his opinion overturning the January 1925 finding of a district judge that the 1919 legislation empowering the Rangers was unconstitutional. That legislation was filed in the aftermath of the Canales Investigation. Quoting Gillett’s view that the Rangers "became in an incredibly short time the most famous efficient body of mounted police in the world" and assessing the view as a “true statement,” Fly lifted the August 1924 injunction putting on hold all appropriations of and administrative support for the Rangers, reversed the recent judgment of the district judge, and dismissed the case.

James Buchanan Gillett died of heart failure at Temple, Texas, on June 11, 1937, and was buried in the Marfa Cemetery. There is a Texas historical marker at his gravesite. Gillett is an inductee in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame.