1. Buford Hayse Pusser was the sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee from 1964 to 1970 and constable of Adamsville from 1970 to 1972.
25 Facts About Buford Pusser
1. 2.
Buford Pusser's efforts have inspired several books, songs, movies, and a TV series.
3.
Buford Pusser was a wrestler known as "Buford the Bull" in the Mid-South.
4.
The Buford Pusser Museum was established at the home he lived in at the time of his death in 1974.
5.
Buford Pusser was born in Finger, McNairy County, Tennessee, on December 12,1937, the son of Helen and Carl Pusser.
6.
Buford Pusser's father was the police chief of Adamsville, Tennessee.
7.
Buford Pusser enlisted in the United States Marine Corps when he graduated from high school.
8.
Buford Pusser's service ended in boot camp, when he was given a medical discharge for asthma.
9.
Buford Pusser was Adamsville's police chief and constable from 1962 to 1964.
10.
Buford Pusser promptly began trying to eliminate the Dixie Mafia and the State Line Mob.
11.
On January 2,1967, Buford Pusser was shot three times by an unidentified gunman.
12.
Buford Pusser named Kirksey Nix as the contractor of his wife's killers, although neither Nix nor anyone else was ever charged with the crime.
13.
Buford Pusser shot and killed an intoxicated Charles Russell Hamilton on December 25,1968, after responding to a complaint that Hamilton had threatened his landlord with a gun.
14.
Buford Pusser was ineligible for re-election in 1970 due to the term limit then in effect.
15.
Buford Pusser was defeated in his bid for sheriff in 1972.
16.
Buford Pusser blamed the loss to incumbent Sheriff Clifford Coleman in part on the controversy surrounding the making of the semibiographical movie Walking Tall.
17.
Buford Pusser was re-elected as constable of Adamsville by a majority of voters, who wrote in his name on their ballots.
18.
Buford Pusser served as constable for two more years.
19.
Buford Pusser spent 18 days in the hospital before returning home, and needed several more surgeries to restore his appearance.
20.
Buford Pusser died on August 21,1974, of injuries sustained in a one-car automobile accident four miles west of Adamsville.
21.
That evening, returning home alone from the McNairy County Fair in his specially modified Corvette, Buford Pusser struck an embankment at high speed that ejected him from the vehicle.
22.
Ervin claimed that Buford Pusser's death was caused by drunk driving without a seat belt.
23.
Buford Pusser himself was a recording artist, with "It Happened In Tennessee", released in October 1973 on Stax Records subsidiary Respect.
24.
Buford Pusser's daughter Dwana released a book in 2009 entitled Walking On, which is an account of his life.
25.
That Cadillac turned out to belong to Buford Pusser, who was not at all pleased to find this stranger atop his car.