02631cam a2200361 i 4500 1546201782 TxAuBib 20180502120000.0 170803s2017||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2017024770 9781619029965 hc 26.00 1619029960 hc 26.00 (OCoLC)999673748 TxAuBib rda McCollom, James P.,. The last sheriff in Texas : a true tale of violence and the vote / James McCollom. Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, [2017] 260 pages ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references. Beeville, Texas, was the most American of small towns -- the 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 magazine's full-page article on the shooting was seen by some as a referendum on law enforcement owing to the sheriff's extreme violence, but supportive telegrams from all across America poured into Beeville's 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 Beeville's 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. Adult. 20180502. Ennis, Vail. Sheriffs Texas Beeville Case studies. Police misconduct Texas Beeville Case studies. Elections Texas Beeville Case studies. Beeville (Tex.) Social conditions 20th century. Beeville (Tex.) Politics and government 20th century. Beeville (Tex.) History 20th century.