Written in Blood: The History of Fort Worth's Fallen Lawmen, Volume 2, 1910-1928

Chapter 7: Police Officer George Gresham (April 8, 1920)

219 7 Police Officer George Gresham (APRIL 8, 1920) “No braver or more loyal man ever wore a police uniform.” 1 ANY YEAR AN OFFICER IS KILLED is a bad year for law enforcement; two in the same year constitutes a disaster. In 1920, two officers were gunned down on the job, one of them a special policeman , the other a nine-year veteran of the regular force.2 The veteran was forty-three-year-old George Gresham, who had worn a badge for eleven years through six administrations, including the annus horribilis of 1917. His death was one of those shocking random acts that occur periodically in law enforcement to remind us that a man should always keep his affairs in order because he never knows when his number might come up. George Gregory Gresham was born on January 28, 1878, in Rockwood, Texas, to John and Hannah Quilton Gresham, both of Tennessee. Nothing is known of his early years except that George grew up in a rather large family with six siblings, including Police Officer George Gresham, ca. 1913, in the bobby-style helmet with the 1912 “panther” badge (no. 16) on his coat. Gresham would have been about thirty-five years old at this point and a twoyear veteran of the force. (Kevin S. Foster’s collections) 220 Written in Blood a brother, Joe, and five half-sisters from his father’s previous marriage . About 1901, George landed in Fort Worth and took a job with the Northern Texas Traction Company (NTTC) as a “motorman ” on streetcars. That was the same year he married Bettie, four years his junior, and they settled down at 617 Jarvis Street. George and Bettie started a family, bringing three daughters into the world in the next seven years. They also moved three times to accommodate their ever-growing family.3 After nine years with NTTC as both a motorman and conductor , he decided to change careers in 1911, coinciding with a change in police administrations.4 The incoming chief was J. W. Renfro. Turnover at the top of the Department always opened up a number of positions since policeman was still a patronage job. Gresham did not have law enforcement experience or political connections , but his service with NTTC had proven his work ethic and reliability. He was hired as one of the forty-one patrolmen on the force. He posted bond and took the oath and was assigned to the mounted patrol because he possessed two all-important qualifications : he knew how to ride and he owned his own horse. His first beat was the North Side where a mixed ethnic population worked at the packing plants and stockyards. Before the year was out, he transferred to foot patrol and was assigned to the eastern, or unsavory , side of town. In the years to follow, he would switch back and forth between mounted and foot patrol. His new beat was the notorious Hell’s Half Acre, which included the black neighborhoods of Irish Town and Little Africa lying just east of the Santa Fe tracks. The former was mostly residential while the latter was a strip of joints between Sixteenth and Seventeenth north to south, and Elm and Terry east to west.5 Because of the nearby rail yards, hoboes frequented the area, and one of his jobs was to make things hot for the homeless so they would move on.6 This was an area where more officers had been killed and injured over the years than any other section of Fort Worth. It was not for the faint of heart or nervous Nellies. A grand jury report in 1920 Police Officer George Gresham (April 8, 1920) 221 called it “a breeding place of crime and responsible for much of the city’s lawless happenings,” which is why the Police Department in the past had sometimes assigned officers in pairs to patrol the area. But budget considerations and Gresham’s experience persuaded his superiors to put him on the streets alone. He did not demand a partner or complain, but he did purchase a $2,000 life insurance policy.7 Sometime after 1910, Bettie Gresham died, and George was a widower for two years before finding Mary, a widow with a young daughter. They married, and George raised Mary’s daughter as if she had been his own. The couple never had any children together, but George...