Six Years with the Texas Rangers

By: James B. Gillett

Narrated by: Jack Chekijian

Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

From 1875 to 1881, James B. Gillett served as one of the Texas Rangers, the lawmen of the Old West. Looking back 40 years later, he tells of his numerous clashes with Native American warriors in the West Texas borderlands, of the Mason County War and the Horrell-Higgins feud, and of dangerous missions into Mexico.

Originally published by Von Boeckmann-Jones Co. in Austin, Texas in 1921.

Public Domain (P)2017 Jack Chekijian

Greatly narrated

Fantastic story that was extremely hard to pause for even the shortest time. New to audio books, this has been one of the best so far.

Awesome history that has not been lost!

Every part of this book is intriguing because I have hunted and hunt these areas that the Rangers and Indians conducted their lives. The act of hunting is exiting but at the same time in the silence while sitting and contemplating my mortality I am able to recall the acts that took place a 150 yeas earlier.

If you love Old West History...

If you enjoy stories about old West history, particularly the Lawmen of that period, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. The Narrator had a different style than I am accustomed to that took a minute to get used to, but really did a fine job of emphasizing the important parts of the book and giving feeling & character to its subjects. I particularly enjoyed the thought process that went into many of their campaigns as well as the quick wit and courage that often got them out of near death situations. This book dovetails nicely with several of the historical books that I’ve read about the Comanche, Kiowa, Navajo and Apaches, such as “Empire of the Summer Moon” (Comanche) the Fighting Cheyenne’s and Blood and Thunder (Navajo). All these tribes had close dealings with the Texas Rangers and by there own accounts had a healthy respect for this fledgling but principled, and often outnumbered group of heroes.

Beautifully read, very nice slice of history brought to life.

Thank you for this publication. It was so easy to listen to, the narrator has the perfect accent, it seemed more like a stage production rather than a book.

Fantastic

Quite a journey to follow. sounds like it was a lawless hellscape in the 1870s

Fascinating details

Great detail and scope of the life of a Texas Ranger with a chronological account of the fronteer life.

A great bio from a really interesting profession

The Texas rangers of the latter 1800s have always fascinated me and this autobiography perfectly captures the time period with all the scrapes they endured with Indians, Mexicans, outlaws, and fugitives. The performance is rather “dry” but it’s okay, just simply a man whose straight reading the whole book (with a very slow delivery, speed up the playback speed) but it’s by no means a problem. Additionally, he does have a southern/Texas drawl so he fits the story the well. All in all, a great read for any other fans of the western time period

Great book, fake accent.

It's a great book, but the narrator seemed like someone who's never been to the south trying to do a southern accent, kind of like Forrest Gump. If you want to narrate it with an accent at least get someone from Texas. The way he said javelina and Guadalupe were especially annoying. Anyone who's in a circumstance to have seen a javalina in person would have the cultural context to know how to pronounce it.

Quality of the source material

Loved how the reader gets a real picture of the time period, a glimpse into the mind of a man of the times, and an honest look at the reality of common depravity on the frontier.

Interesting story

Great first hand account of life in the Texas Rangers. Narrator took a little bit of getting use to, but once I did, i felt he added greatly to the book.