Every time I pass
through the tiny settlement of Kickapoo in Anderson County, I am invariably reminded
of the colonel--not the one with the chicken--but a man who revolutionized law
enforcement in Texas.
Colonel Homer Garrison,
Jr., had one of the most recognized law enforcement careers in the U.S., culminating
with his leadership of the Texas Rangers and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Born at Kickapoo, Garrison graduated from Lufkin High School and went to work
for his father, who was then District Clerk of Angelina County. He took his first
job as a law officer at nineteen, when he was appointed a deputy sheriff.
His father admonished him for taking the job: “Son, you’ll never amount to anything
in that dead-end job.”
But in 1929, Garrison became a state license and
weight inspector for the Texas Highway Department and joined the Texas Highway
Patrol when it was organized in 1930.
When the Department of Public Safety
was founded in 1935, Garrison became the first assistant director and was appointed
director in 1938.
During World
War II, he was offered an appointment by General Douglas McArthur to reorganize
the Japanese national police system, but declined in deference to his Texas job.
When FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was stricken with a serious illness,
President Dwight Eisenhower considered Garrison as his replacement. But Hoover
recovered and Garrison stayed in Texas.
When
Garrison died in 1968, the Texas Rangers and the Department of Public Safety were
entrenched as one of the most efficient police organizations in America.
During
his lifetime, Garrison always remembered his Lufkin
roots and visited there often. A brother, Pitser H. Garrison, served as Lufkin’s
mayor for eighteen years.
Bob
Bowman's East Texas August 28, 2010Column.
A weekly column syndicated
in 109 East Texas newspapers |
