Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Mike Coston, of Tyler, portrays the Lone Ranger at all kinds of events.
“I stay backstage, and they start talking about the Lone Ranger and then they announce, ‘here’s the Lone Ranger.’ I come out and I’ve got my two forty-fives. Of course, I’ve got blanks and I fire two shots: Pow Pow! Then I tell ‘em; THE LONE RANGER RIDES AGAIN. They almost stand up and cheer. They love the Lone Ranger.
He used to entertain on the Texas State Railroad that runs between Rusk and Palestine.
“I had a costume made in the exact replica of the Lone Ranger’s all the way down to his holsters and spurs and hat. I even have nickel plated forty-fives with ivory handles so I put all that together and I became The Lone Ranger. I was on a white horse and I’d ride alongside the train and I’d rare him up, and people would be sticking their heads out the window and they’d wave and cheer. In Palestine, I’d get on the train and ride all the way back to Rusk and I’d go through each car talking to them about the Lone Ranger, and they loved it.”
Mike knows a lot about the Lone Ranger.
“The Lone Ranger radio series started in 1930 with WXYZ radio in Detroit Michigan. From then on, it was so popular that they had lunch kits, holster sets, the hat - anything they could market with the Lone Ranger on it. Then the program hit the networks.”
Mike said the Lone Ranger got his name because he was the only ranger left alive after an ambush while Texas Rangers were chasing an outlaw gang. Mike says that when Stephen F. Austin got permission from Mexico in the 1820s to start the Texas Rangers, their job was to range over Texas. He says that the Lone Ranger’s mask was made from his brother’s vest. His brother, one of the Rangers, was killed in the ambush. The Lone Ranger wore a mask because he didn’t want the outlaws to know that he was alive and still fighting crime. The outlaws feared him.
The location of the series, according to Mike, occurred in an area covered by Amarillo, El Paso, and San Angelo. Some of the places mentioned in the radio series you can find on a Texas Map.
“The ring on my phone is the Lone Ranger.” Says Mike. “It’s the William Tell Overture. When you hear that music, it is The Lone Ranger, probably more so than any other song associated with any other character there is.”
I asked Mike if the Lone Ranger is real or just a character on radio and television.
“You know, that’s for you to determine,” he says. I can give you so much information that at the end of the conversation you’re going to think this was a real guy.”
