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Now You Know:
The Cinco Peso Badge
by Glenn Elliott,
Texas Ranger, Ret.
Many stories have
been written and many rumors told as to the origin of the current Texas
Ranger cinco peso badge. As yet, I have not seen the whole story
told. I was there and this is how it came about.
In
the early 1960s, the Great East Texas Oil Field located in and around
Kilgore was rocked by what became famous as the slant-hole business.
The East Texas field, discovered in 1930, is and was the largest oil
field ever developed in the continental United States.
By
the early 60s, some of the wells were no longer the great gushers they
had once been. Some had become marginal at best for most of the major
oil companies. Often these wells were sold to small, independent operators
who required much less money to operate and could therefore rework the
wells and turn a small profit. Small is the key word here.
With
millions of dollars on the line, it didn’t take the crooks long
to figure out a way to turn more than their fair share of profit.
They developed a really simple method to steal someone else’s property.
They would send down a whip-stock (a directional drilling device)
into the hole and dig the hole slanted toward a neighboring well
that was a good producer. Suddenly, a marginal well turned into
a gusher.
Like
all good schemes, the secret couldn’t be kept and word leaked out. Naturally,
the legal owners of the wells being tapped were outraged that their
oil was being stolen. They went to the Railroad Commission, which regulated
the oil field, and demanded action to stop the theft.
There
weren’t just a few slant-hole wells; there were hundreds. Each suspected
well would have to be physically inspected by an agent of the Railroad
Commission to determine if the hole went straight down or slanted.
Many
of the old boys working these slant-holes were pretty rough characters,
and it was expected that some would resist physically. This is where
the Rangers came in. “One Ranger, One Riot” aside, this was so big that
over the next two years, just about every Ranger in the state worked
at Kilgore at one time or another.
 G.
W. Burks, future captain of Company "B", was a private stationed
in Fort Worth at the time. G. W. was a great reader of history, especially
Texas Ranger history. He had read about earlier Ranger badges, many
of which had been been made from Mexican five (cinco) peso coins.
Burks
went to our future Hall of Fame Captain Bob Crowder, described the badge
to him, and requested permission to have one made. Captain Crowder liked
the badge and gave the go-ahead. G. W. went to Halton’s Jewelry in Fort
Worth, explained how the badge was to be made, and had them make one.
At a company meeting, we were shown the badge. We all loved it and naturally
wanted one.
We
had to furnished our own coin, which if memory serves me right, cost
about six or seven dollars. The badge looks pretty much the same today
as the one G W designed. The top of the badge had our name on it, and
in the center was the letter “B,” representing our company.
During
the slant-hole business, when Rangers from the other five companies
came to Kilgore and saw the badge, they also wanted one. Even more important,
Colonel Homer Garrison, the director of the Department of Public Safety,
saw it and fell in love with it. He wanted one, too. Colonel Garrison
was the director for about thirty years, and the whole time after this,
he wore this Texas Ranger badge—he loved the Rangers.
Shortly
thereafter, every Ranger in the state was wearing the now world-famous
Cinco Peso badge.
To
borrow from my good friend Paul Harvey, “And now you know the rest of
the story.”
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