The Last Sheriff in Texas: A True Tale of Violence and the Vote

About this book

A small-town election pits a violent if popular sheriff against those eager to see his iron rule end in this "riveting" historical true crime story about a landmark standoff between old time justice in 1940s small town Texas and a modern more inclusive vision of the West (Dallas Morning News). Beeville Texas was the most American of small townsthe place that GIs had fantasized about while fighting through the ruins of Europe a place of good schools clean streets and churches. Old West justice ruled as evidenced by a 1947 shootout when outlaws surprised popular sheriff Vail Ennis at a gas station and shot him five times point-blank in the belly. Ennis managed to draw his gun and put three bullets in each assailant; he reloaded and shot them three times more. Time magazines full-page article on the shooting was seen by some as a referendum on law enforcement owing to the sheriffs extreme violence but supportive telegrams from all across America poured into Beevilles tiny post office. Yet when a second violent incident threw Ennis into the crosshairs of public opinion once again the uprising was orchestrated by an unlikely figure: his close friend and Beevilles favorite son Johnny Barnhart. Barnhart confronted Ennis in the election of 1952: a landmark standoff between old Texas with its culture of cowboy bravery and violence and urban Texas with its lawyers oil institutions and a growing Mexican population. The town would never be the same again. The Last Sheriff in Texas is a riveting narrative about the postwar American landscape an era grappling with the same issues we continue to face today. Debate over excessive force in law enforcement Anglo-Mexican relations gun control the influence of the media urban-rural conflict the power of the oil industry mistrust of politicians and the political processall have surprising historical precedence in the story of Vail Ennis and Johnny Barnhart.