Cowboy Justice: Tale of a Texas Lawman

'Jim Gober was not simply a witness to early Texas Panhandle, New Mexico, and Oklahoma history; he was involved in it up to his neck' - Elmer Kelton. '""Cowboy Justice"" is a bonanza for all readers and historians who love the real West. The book is authentic as a Porter saddle...as down to earth as the birth of a longhorn calf, and gives you the uncanny feeling of being there. An honest Cracker Jack read. Rare indeed' - Max Evans. 'Jim Gober['s] memoirs provide more wisdom and insight into Texas lawmen and law enforcement than anything I've read...This is a narrative of cattle empires, of goodness and harshness, loyalty, family and politics. It defines the wages of life' - Leon C. Metz. 'A valuable contribution to the literature of the West. It brings a too often forgotten time vividly to life in a narrative which belongs on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in and a love for the people and places that constitute our western heritage' - Norman Zollinger. 'A rare treasure...""Cowboy Justice"" relates the common man's struggle while brushing against the lives of frontier legends such as Sam Bass, Pat Garret, Charlie Siringo, and Temple Houston. An ordinary citizen swept through extraordinary times' - Mike Blakely. Jim Gober had a code of ethics that he adhered to throughout his life. His code made him the man he was, and it cost him dearly. It was an ethic based in loyalty, and it was the central force in his life story. It compelled him to leave home at fifteen. It drove him to cowboying on the ranges of West Texas. It catapulted him into politics as the youngest elected sheriff in the United States. It made him the target of hired assassins. As strong and romantic a character as ever portrayed by Cooper, Wayne, or Eastwood, Gober played out his life with all the drama, suspense, and danger of an Old West you only thought was mythical.

Review Comments Show Story Trandcends Regional Boundaries

"Although Jim Gober would certainly have classified himself as an ordinary citizen, his story is an extraordinary look into a period in American history full of sweeping changes... Cowboy Justice is an intensely personal account of the Old West. Jim Gober's unvarnished account of his life adds a great deal to our understanding of the period. It is not about the West, but about the people that chose to live there."

Maj Verb Washington, USMA '85
Department of History, USMA
Assembly (AOG of the U.S. Military Academy)
July/August 1997

"Gober's memoirs are an awesome, primary source for the history of the Western frontier and the brief cowboy era...Certainly, it reads like a television series, with enough plots for a season's scripts and more. It's so entertaining, the reader has to force himself to remember Hollywood derived its material from sources like Gober, not visa versa."

Ann DeFrange
The Sunday Oklahoman, June 22, 1997

"The picture Gober paints of his life on those rugged plains adds a new dimension to the historical record about the Panhandle...And in this new book, James R. Gober gives us a surveyor's account, not the stuff of fantasy."

Carroll Wilson
Wichita Falls Times Record News, June 20, 1997

" the life of a Texan who did it all, from herding cattle to herding crooks, from homesteading to horse-race promoting. Jim Gober did all that, and just about everything in between."

Judyth Rigler
Abilene Reporter-News, June 8, 1997

"The publication of Gober's memoirs is a welcome addition to Texas history...This is an autobiography of a straight-forward man who saw much during his lifetime. In the end, he had little to show for his service to the people of Potter County except his own integrity...this is an excellent book that will certainly be a welcome addition to any reader's bookshelf."

David Johnson
True West, June 1997

"Cowboy Justice is an authentic, refreshing look at what it was really like to be a cowboy-lawman in the Texas Panhandle. You'll enjoy this one."

Rick Miller
Quarterly of the National Association for
Outlaw and Lawman History, Inc.
April-June 1997

"Strutting across his [Jim Gober's] memory were the likes of Old Sam Jacinto's wild son, Temple Houston, as well as bandits Sam Bass, Rube Burrow, Al Jennings and, on the other side of the badge, Billy the Kid nemesis Sheriff Pat Garrett and his sometime side kick, man-killer Jim East. Jim East nearly ended the Gober autobiography on an early page. The memoirist's recollection of that Tascosa drama will cock your pistol: ..."

Kent Biffle's Texana
The Dallas Morning News, May 18, 1997

"This is a gem! The reader is unlikely to find a better portrait of life in the West as it really was 75 to 100 years ago..."

Lori Davisson
Books of the Southwest, May/June, 1997

"Cowboy Justice is a great story, a chronicle of sorts of life in West Texas during the late 1800s and early 1900s."

Judyth Rigler
San Antonio Express-News, May 11, 1997

"The book is a tribute to the great lawman [Jim Gober]---a clear autobiography as dusty and bloody as the Texas west..."

Christopher Mosmeyer
Denton Chronicle, May 8, 1997

"Cowboy Justice is worth reading, not only for the immediacy and color that it imparts to a significant era in Texas history, but also for the humanizing sense of history that it provides. Although besieged by personal tragedy and touched often by misfortune and bad luck, Gober maintained an unswerving code of personal ethics."

Betty Bisbee
Caprock Sun, March 1997

"...This is 'history on the hoof''...to the last page, this story will keep you turning pages."

C.F. Eckhardt
The Tombstone Epitaph, March 1997

"Scholars and history buffs can be grateful to Gober's grandson, James R. "Dick" Gober of Albuquerque, for editing what turns out to be a rare literary and historical discovery...as noted by his grandson, Jim Gober was no whiner; and throughout a difficult life he adhered to an ethical code learned at his mother's knee on a farm in down-state Texas."

Mary Kate Tripp
Amarillo Sunday News-Globe, March 23, 1997

"An important memoir has appeared on the Texas history-book market, which is a bonanza for folks who love the West as it really was, not doctored up to fit the image of John Wayne...The early-day lawman had a code of ethics that he followed throughout his life. Although sticking to his code made him a man respected by friend and foe alike, it also cost him dearly."

Ross McSwain
San Angelo Standard-Times, March 10, 1997

"Jim Gober, at 22 the youngest sheriff in U.S. history, became both hunter and hunted. A romantic character in the tradition of those portrayed by Gary Cooper, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood..."

Ray Westbrook
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, February 16, 1997

"...the recollections of a man who spent a life so rich that many people today might think his [James R. Gober's] grandfather's adventure stories were more fiction than fact..."

David Steinberg
Albuquerque Journal, February 2, 1997