"The Texas Sheriff takes a fresh, colorful, and insightful look at Texas law enforcement during the decades before 1960. In the first half of the twentieth century, rural Texas was a strange, often violent, and complicated place. Nineteenth-century lifestyles persisted, blood relationships made a difference, and racial apartheid remained rigidly enforced.".

"Citizens expected their county sheriffs to uphold local customs as well as state laws. He had to help constituents with their personal problems, which often had little or nothing to do with law enforcement. The rural sheriff served as his county's "Mr. Fixit," its resident "good old boy," and the lord of an intricate rural society.".

"Basing his interpretations upon primary sources and extensive interviews, Thad Sitton explores the dual nature of the Texas sheriff, demonstrating their far-reaching power both to do good and to abuse the law. For example, Sheriff Corbett Akins of Panola County often gave local farmers advance warning of bank foreclosures so they might make last-ditch efforts to save their farms.

But this same Sheriff Akins also squirted lighter fluid on the feet of sleeping oilfield transients, setting fire to them to encourage them to move on."--BOOK JACKET.