Junius "June" Peak (1845-1934) was an American lawman of the Wild West and a captain of the Texas Rangers.
Biography[]
Junius Peak was born in Warsaw, Kentucky on 5 April 1845, and his family moved to Dallas, Texas in 1855. He served in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, and, after the war, he returned to Dallas and became a deputy sheriff and member of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1872, he was hired by New Mexico cattlemen to put an end to cattle rustling in the territory, and, in 1874, he was elected city marshal of Dallas. In 1878, he was elected city recorder, and Governor Richard B. Hubbard commissioned Peak a lieutenant in the Texas Rangers. In 1878, he was appointed to head a special company of Rangers sent to take down the notorious train robber Sam Bass, and he persuaded the captured outlaw Jim Murphy to turn informer against Bass to protect his family. On 21 July 1878, he and the Rangers, aided by Murphy, ambushed and killed Bass during a failed bank robbery in Round Rock, Texas. From 1880 to 1884, he worked in construction in Mexico, and he settled on Live Oak Ranch in Shackleford County. In 1899, the family returned to Dallas to raise their children, and he worked in real estate until his death in 1934.