James Brooks (Texas Ranger)

James Brooks (November 20, 1855 – January 15, 1944) was a Texas Ranger of the Old West, and is a member of the Texas Rangers Hall of Fame, and who developed a reputation as a gunman.

James Abijah Brooks was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky, to a wealthy doctor and planter. His father was killed during the American Civil War, and his family's home was destroyed. Brooks then helped his widowed mother raise his seven siblings. Once he felt his family could make it without him, at the age of 21 he departed for the west. He settled in McKinney, Texas, and later bought a farm in Collin County, with his intent being to start a ranch and raise cattle. For a brief time in 1879 he worked as a cowboy along the Chisholm Trail, but found the Kansas winters too harsh, and returned to Texas. He settled, for a time, in San Antonio, Texas, and worked for a period in Shafter, Texas.

Broke and without employment, Brooks joined the Texas Rangers in January 1883, assigned to "Company F", starting a career that would last twenty three years. Brooks rapidly gained a reputation as a Ranger who would quickly draw his gun, rather than negotiate. In 1886, while pursuing outlaws in Indian Territory, Brooks became involved in a gunfight that almost cost him his life, resulting in one man being killed.

Less than one month later Brooks engaged a cowboy in a gunfight while in Alex, Oklahoma, over the cowboy carrying a weapon in town. Brooks killed him, and was indicted for manslaughter. Brooks was convicted of Manslaughter in Fort Smith, Arkansas, however Brooks' case was lobbied by fellow Rangers, and he was given a Presidential Pardon by Grover Cleveland, and allowed to re-enlist as a Texas Ranger that same year.

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