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Texas Department of Public Safety established
On this day in 1935, the Texas Department of Public Safety was
established by the Texas legislature, prompted by the election of
Governor James Allred, who ran on a platform of better law enforcement.
The department was to enforce laws to protect public safety and to
provide for crime prevention and detection. A three-member Public Safety
Commission, appointed by the governor for six-year terms, oversaw the
department and in turn named the director and assistant director. Homer
Garrison, Jr., the first assistant director, became the director in
1938, and led the department for almost thirty years. Originally
department operations were classified into six divisions: the Texas
Highway Patrol, Texas Rangers, Bureau of Communications, Bureau of
Intelligence, Bureau of Education, and Bureau of Identification and
Records. Through the years the Department of Public Safety continued to
reorganize and expand its operations into such activities as licensing
of drivers, investigation of drug trafficking, accident records,
emergency management, automated fingerprint identification, combating
organized crime, and motor-vehicle theft.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
- GARRISON, HOMER JR.
- ALLRED, JAMES BURR V
- TEXAS RANGERS
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
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- First woman poet laureate dies (1958)
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