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Book Review

Jim Courtright of Fort Worth:
His Life and Legend

By Robert K. DeArment

Review by Chuck Parsons

Robert K. DeArment, Jim Courtright of Fort Worth: His Life and Legend (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 2004). Foreword by Richard F. Selcer. xvi + 287 pp., 36 photographs, one map, extensive notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-87565-292-1. $24.95 Hardcover only. P.O. Box 298300, Fort Worth, Texas 76129. 1-800-826-8911.

Robert K. DeArment has long been established as a top-notch historian of the Old West. His works range from a 1979 biography of lawman-gambler Bat Masterson to a 1997 work on the outlaw adjutant general of Oklahoma, Frank Canton. All his works are highly researched, conservatively written, and authoritative. This biography of T. I. "Jim" Courtright is no exception.

Courtright is best known as a lawman. At one time, he was a deputy marshal, jailer, and volunteer fireman in Fort Worth. He then became city marshal of Fort Worth, a private detective, a man hunter (after Sam Bass in particular), a professional gambler, and a fugitive, on occasion. It was as a fugitive that the Texas Rangers figured into his career.

On May 6, 1883, two men were murdered in the American Valley of New Mexico, and Jim Courtright and five others were the killers. Following the murders, Courtright returned to his familiar turf of Fort Worth, where he accepted an appointment as deputy U.S. marshal and Tarrant County deputy sheriff! In spite of his good work as a lawman at this time, the New Mexico governor offered a $500 reward for Courtright's capture and return to New Mexico justice.

It was not until October 18, 1884, that Lieutenant Albert Grimes and Corporal J. Hayes of Texas Ranger Company C managed to locate and arrest Courtright in a Fort Worth hotel. When friends learned he had been captured, they aroused the city, and at least seven hundred of Courtright's friends surrounded the hotel. Only after the intercession of several influential local authorities was Courtright taken into custody and placed in jail.

In spite of the watchfulness of Lieutenant Grimes and Corporal Hayes, however, Courtright managed to escape. He had convinced the general populace of Fort Worth that the men he was accused of killing were Mexicans. Due to the general prejudice against this race in that time and place, it was easy to remind friends and associates of the Mexican involvement at the Alamo and Goliad.

The Rangers, therefore, had to not only guard their prisoner but also contend with the power of a mob. Friends obtained pistols (delivered by a waiter on a covered tray) when they stopped in a restaurant for a meal, and secretly got the hidden pistols to Courtright. Surrounded by many who were convinced Courtright was getting a raw deal, Lieutenant Grimes had no choice but to allow his prisoner to escape. Death was the only alternative.

If the odds had been more equal, Courtright would not have been able to make his celebrated escape from the Rangers. In spite of the apocryphal "one riot, one Ranger!" of Bill McDonald legend, this was a case of a couple of Rangers surrounded by hundreds of armed men who would give them no quarter if they resisted. As it was, Grimes and Hayes lived to fight another day.

Months later, Courtright tired of his life as a fugitive and surrendered, ready to stand trial. Ultimately, the charges against him were dismissed for lack of witnesses.

Robert K. DeArment has researched his subject thoroughly. Seemingly every item ever printed or written about T. I. Courtright has been gathered in and analyzed. We now learn that Courtright's Civil War experiences were made out of whole cloth, and his acquaintance with Wild Bill Hickok was also a creation of his own making. In addition, it is shown that Courtright’s almost uncanny ability with six-guns served him only while showing off: the only standup, face-to-face gunfight in which he engaged was his last.

Jim Courtright of Fort Worth is an important contribution. It provides as near a definitive biography of Courtright as we may ever have, and it provides an explanation of how a legend is created, not only through Western novelists F. Stanley (Father Stanley Crocchiola) and Eugene Cunningham but also others who followed them. This book is so well written than one wishes there were a few more chapters after the White Elephant shooting, in which Courtright lost his life to gambler-gunfighter Luke Short.