Marvin "Red" Burton
[1] A native Texan, Burton worked in various positions of law enforcement almost the entirety of his adult career.
Burton is also remembered for his involvement in busting bootlegging operations during Prohibition, and cleaning up crime in wild towns like Borger, Texas.
[2] Red's parents were migrants to Texas from Mississippi and settled in the McLennan County region in the late 1870s.
After a typical upbringing for the area and time, Marvin Burton started his own family at the age of eighteen.
In 1913, Burton returned to Waco now with 2 children and his wife, and using eight years’ worth of savings, bought a plot of land and started building a homestead.
The company had been assigned by the United States government to build an airfield at Richfield, a few miles west of Waco.
Burton was kept busy; mostly directing traffic and controlling the newly arriving soldiers to camp MacArthur, outside Waco.
In September 1919, Burton was informed by his chief that he was being transferred back to a daytime schedule, "for the good of the department".
On October 1, 1921, local members of the Ku Klux Klan began organizing a large rally to take place in Lorena.
The Klan already had a strong presence in the Waco area, but neither Burton or Buchanan were aware of the plans to convene in the town center of Lorena.
Both men already knew the other was not a member of the Klan, and they already had a run in with them the 27 September 1921, when there was a particularly destructive rally in the town of Mart.
After that event, Buchanan had asserted to Burton, "if there is ever another parade in McLennan County while I am sheriff, I intend to find out who is responsible".
After some time passed, two McClennan county officials who knew Buchanan and Burton claimed responsibility.
Reportedly, Buchanan grabbed and threw the cross to the ground, flinging up the hood of one of the men saying, "I don't know you, but if I ever see your face again I will".
A Klan member, later identified as a Waco policeman, struck Buchanan on the back of the head with either a blackjack or a billyclub.
Burton was able to get free from his assailants and take Buchanan to a Waco hospital, where the angry mob of Klansmen followed.
After showing his courage and valor dealing with the Ku Klux Klan, Burton was appointed a Texas Ranger in 1922 by Governor Pat Neff.
[1] As a Ranger Burton was sent to the towns of Somerville and Borger, to clean up bootlegging and whiskey making operations.
[1] On August 25, 1923, Texas Rangers Marvin Burton and R.D Shumate led a police raid on a large moonshining operation in Somervell County.
[4] After testifying for two young men in 1922, who were wrongfully convicted for the rape and murder of a girl, Burton caught the real culprit a year later.
