William Lee Wright: Texas Ranger Captain and Sheriff of Wilson County (1868–1942)
Revised by: George T. Díaz and Richard B. McCaslin, Ph.D.
Published: January 1, 1996
Updated: November 22, 2023
William Lee “Will” Wright, captain of the Texas Rangers and sheriff of Wilson County, son of Little Berry Wright and Ann Elizabeth (Tumlinson) Wright, was born in Lockhart, Texas, on February 10, 1868. He moved to DeWitt County with his family; later he moved to Wilson County. Wright served during the transition of the Texas Rangers from their horseback era in the early 1900s to the modern Rangers of the Texas Department of Public Safety after 1935. Four Rangers—the "Big Four"—had an enormous impact on this change: Manuel Trazazas “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas, Francis Augustus “Frank” Hamer, Thomas R. Hickman, and Wright.
A talkative, bespectacled man who resembled Theodore Roosevelt, Wright took part in Ranger operations in an intermittent way for nearly four decades. In his early life he became a cowboy on the Eckhardt Ranch in DeWitt County and the Rutledge Ranch in Karnes County. He served as a deputy sheriff of Wilson County from 1894 to 1898. Then in 1899 Wright joined the Texas Rangers and ultimately became part of Company E (later renamed Company C) commanded by John H. Rogers. In 1902 he left the Rangers and was elected sheriff of Wilson County and served in this post for fifteen years. He served one term as president of the Texas Sheriffs’ Association.
In 1917 Governor William P. Hobby appointed Wright as Ranger captain of Company K (1917–19) and then Company D (1919–25). In 1927 Governor Dan Moody appointed Wright as Ranger captain of Company A, and he served in this capacity until 1933. Wright, called El Capitán Diablo (“The Devil Captain”), and the Rangers under his command searched for draft evaders along the U. S.-Mexico border during World War I , intervened in the railroad strikes of 1922, confronted tequileros during Prohibition, and policed such oil boom towns as Wink.
Wright rejoined the Rangers in 1935 and was appointed as a private to Company A by Governor James V Allred. Wright served during the era of the Department of Public Safety and left the service in 1939 at the age of seventy-one. He married Mary Ann “Molly” Brown on December 22, 1892; they had one daughter and five sons that lived to adulthood, three of whom were Texas Rangers. His family lineage links him to several prominent early Rangers, including his grandfather, Joseph Tumlinson, and his great-uncles, Peter Tumlinson and John J. Tumlinson, Jr. Milam H. Wright, a brother, also became a well-known Ranger. William L. Wright died on March 7, 1942, in Floresville and was buried in the city cemetery there. He is an inductee in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. A Texas Historical Marker, located on the courthouse square in Floresville, honors Wright.
Bibliography:
George T. Díaz, Border Contraband: A History of Smuggling across the Rio Grande (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015). Richard B. McCaslin, Texas Ranger Captain: William L. Wright (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2021). Ben H. Procter, Just One Riot: Episodes of Texas Rangers in the 20th Century (Austin: Eakin Press, 1991). William Warren Sterling, Trails and Trials of a Texas Ranger (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968). Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum: W. L. “Will” Wright (https://www.texasranger.org/texas-ranger-museum/hall-of-fame/william-lee-wright/), accessed January 13, 2023. Walter Prescott Webb Papers, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. Walter Prescott Webb, The Texas Rangers (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982).
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Harold J. Weiss, Jr. Revised by George T. Díaz and Richard B. McCaslin, Ph.D., “Wright, William Lee,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/wright-william-lee.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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- January 1, 1996
- November 22, 2023
