WHISKEY RIVER RANGER: The Old West Life of Baz Outlaw

Captain Frank Jones, a famed nineteenth-century Texas Ranger, said of his company’s top sergeant, Baz Outlaw (1854–1894), “A man of unusual courage and coolness and in a close place is worth two or three ordinary men.” Another old-time Texas Ranger declared that Baz Outlaw “was one of the worst and most dangerous” because “he never knew what fear was.” But not all thought so highly of him. In Whiskey River Ranger, Bob Alexander tells for the first time the full story of this troubled Texas Ranger and his losing battle with alcoholism.
In his career Baz Outlaw wore a badge as a Texas Ranger and also as a Deputy US Marshal. He could be a fearless and crackerjack lawman, as well as an unmanageable manic. Although Baz Outlaw’s badge-wearing career was sometimes heroically creditable, at other times his self-induced nightmarish imbroglios teased and tested Texas Ranger management’s resoluteness.
Baz Outlaw’s true-life story is jam-packed with fellows owning well-known names, including Texas Rangers, city marshals, sheriffs, and steely-eyed mean-spirited miscreants. Baz Outlaw’s tale is complete with horseback chases, explosive train robberies, vigilante justice (or injustice), nighttime ambushes and bushwhacking, and episodes of scorching six-shooter finality. Baz met his end in a brothel brawl at the hands of John Selman, the same gunfighter who killed John Wesley Hardin.

BOB ALEXANDER began a policing career in 1965 and retired as a special agent with the U.S. Treasury Department. He is the author of Rawhide Ranger, Ira Aten (winner of WWHA Best Book Award); Six-Shooters and Shifting Sands,Bad Company and Burnt Powder, Riding Lucifer's Line, and Winchester Warriors, all published by UNT Press. He lives in Maypearl, Texas.