Iconic “One Riot, One Ranger” statue will return to Love Field on March 12

Captain Jay Banks is considered the most famous Texas Ranger of all time.

Joe Laird/Staff photographer

On April 30, 1961, 16 Texas Rangers were on hand for the unveiling and dedication of the Ranger monument in the lobby of the Dallas Love Field. Mary Caroline Hall (left, in this photo) unveiled the statue.

DALLAS — In October 2010, when the city began modernizing Dallas Love Field, one of its most iconic residents was moved from the airport: the 12-foot tall Texas Ranger of 1960, Waldine Amanda Tauch’s bronze statue sculpted in the image of Captain Jay Banks, who died in 1987 and is considered among the most famous of all Rangers following appearances on The Tonight Show and in Time magazine. The Ranger was moved to the Frontiers of Flight Museum while work was being done to the lobby, where the statue stood guard since he was donated by Mr. and Mrs. Earle Wyatt in ’61.

But at long last, the Ranger returns: City Hall just sent word that on Tuesday the statue also known by its immortal inscription — “One Riot, One Ranger” — will be reinstalled.

“The return of the Texas Ranger statue is a welcome event,” says Kay Kallos, the city’s Public Art Manager, in Friday’s release. “It’s an iconic figure at Love Field and part of a larger collection that establishes the airport as a destination for public art and travel.”

Come 2014, Kallos reminds, the new Dallas Love Field will be filled with public art — some brand-new, some quite familiar. Among the old favorites making their return: the 1958 entrance sign, which reappeared last month on Mockingbird Lane and Denton Drive.