The Lone Ranger rode a white horse named “Silver.” Research shows Reeves rode a gray that may have looked white in appearance.Īs in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, blacks in the 19th and early 20th century wore an invisible mask in a world that largely ignored them. The Lone Ranger worked in disguise, a technique Reeves regularly used to catch unsuspecting felons. Reeves gave folks silver dollars to remember him by. The Lone Ranger left silver bullets as his calling card.
Many times, the possemen who worked with Reeves were Indians or black Indians, such as Grant Johnson. marshals take at least one posseman along to assist in field work.
In the Indian Territory, federal law mandated that deputy U.S. Tonto, from the Potawatomi nation, made his first appearance as the Lone Ranger’s sidekick on the twelfth episode of the radio show (Trendle grew up in Michigan, the traditional territory of the Potawatomi). Last, many of his personal attributes and techniques in catching desperadoes were similar to the Lone Ranger of fiction. During that era, blacks, whites and Indians were singing songs and telling stories about Reeves’s accomplishments in bringing in outlaws to the federal courts. Third, Reeves worked for 32 years and became a celebrity during his lifetime. Second, he overcame his handicap of being illiterate by memorizing the warrants and subpoenas he had to administer in Indian Territory (pre-state Oklahoma). First, he was a former slave in Texas who never learned to read or write. The late 19th century saw the storied exploits of a real-life legendary deputy U.S. The next year, though, he forced Striker to sign over his rights to the Lone Ranger and Trendle claimed credit as the creator. Trendle originally gave Striker credit for developing the character. He came up with a masked, lone Texas Ranger and then turned the idea over to Striker for further development.
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A lawyer who owned WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan, Trendle wanted to develop a radio series with a cowboy as the hero. Trendle and Fran Striker created the character for radio in 1933. Yet just who exactly was the Lone Ranger? With a budget of $250 million, this summer’s Disney movie, The Lone Ranger, will be the largest of any Western ever made in cinema history.