Judge Roy Bean

Judge Roy Bean, self-proclaimed "Law West of the Pecos," was undoubtedly one of the most colorful characters to ever leave his mark on the American West.

From behind the bar of The Jersey Lilly, his saloon in the railroad town of Langtry, Judge Bean served up frontier justice along with beer and whiskey, leaving a mingled legacy of fact and fiction.

Deep in the canyons of Texas's Big Bend country, the town of Langtry was created by the coming of the Southern Pacific railroad in the late 1800's.

Outside town, Dead Man's Gulch marks the location where the final section of track linking New Orleans and San Francisco was laid. Along with the railroad came the usual problems faced by many frontier towns of the time, an influx of rowdy construction crews and their attendant evils: fighting, stealing, gambling, and prostitution.

In response, Roy Bean, a shopkeeper in the neighboring shantytown of Vinegaroon, was named as Pecos County's first Justice of the Peace in August of 1882.

Bean soon established a saloon/courthouse in Langtry and began his eccentric career. Tales about Judge Roy Bean swirl like sparks from a campfire. He chose his jurors from among his saloon customers. He always presided over trials with a pistol by one hand and his single book of law by the other. He kept a pet bear named Bruno.

He used his authority to bilk train passengers who ventured into his establishment. Though known as a "hanging judge" his favorite punishent was to exile offenders into the Chihuahuan desert without food, water, weapons, or money.

Perhaps the strangest story concerns his obsession with the British actress, Lilly Langtry, who was popularly known as "The Jersey Lily." Bean named his saloon in her honor and wrote her numerous letters, begging her to visit her namesake town in Texas.

The judge was so persistant that after several years (and his implication that the town was named for her), Lilly Langtry consented to make a stop there on a 1904 tour.

A few months before she arrived, Bean died in March 1903.

The original Jersey Lilly still stands in the small Texas town of Langtry. Restored by the State of Texas, the Judge's saloon and adjacent visitor's center attracts over 100,000 visitors each year.

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