LAW WEST OF THE PECOS
Judge Roy Bean was born Phantly Roy Bean, Jr. in 1825 in Mason County, Kentucky. He was the youngest of three sons of Phantly and Anna Bean.
He led a very colorful life. At about age 16 he left home and took a flatboat down to New Orleans, where he got into trouble and fled to San Antonio. There he joined his brother Sam and worked as a freighter.
In 1848, Sam and Roy opened a saloon/trading post in Chihuahua, Mexico. Depending upon whom you believe, he fled to Sonora because he was wanted for cattle rustling or for shooting a Mexican who had threatened to kill a gringo. In 1849 Roy went to California to live with his other brother, Joshua.
Judge Roy Bean
Joshua was elected the first mayor of San Diego in 1850. He appointed Roy as a lieutenant in the state militia. And Roy worked in his brother’s saloon, the Headquarters.
Roy, who apparently was quite the lady’s man (hard to tell from the photo), got into a duel with a man named Collins. Collins was slightly wounded and both men were arrested. While in jail, Roy received many gifts from the local ladies. The last gift he received was a pair of knives hidden in some tamales. Roy dug through the jail wall and escaped.
He went to San Gabriel, where the Headquarters was located, and tended bar. When his brother was killed, Roy inherited the saloon.
In 1854 a lady that he was courting was kidnapped and forced to marry a Mexican officer. Roy challenged the officer to a duel and killed him. Some of the officer’s friends tried to hang Roy. They put him on a horse and put a noose around his neck. Then they road away. The horse did not bolt, as they supposed it would, and the bride came out from behind a tree and cut the rope. Roy was left with a permanent rope burn and a permanent stiff neck. (Could have been worse!)
Roy then went to live with Sam in New Mexico, where Sam was the sheriff of Dona Ana County. In 1861 Sam and Roy opened a store/saloon in Pinos Altos.
During the Civil War, Roy either rode with a group of irregulars called the Forty Rovers (known to the locals as the Forty Thieves, since they seemed more intent on robbery than fighting the Union army) or he ran the blockade hauling cotton from San Antonio to British ships off the coast of Matamoros. Which depends upon whom you talk to.
He spent the next twenty years in San Antonio working at various jobs. He ran a firewood business (he cut down his neighbor’s timber), a dairy business (he watered the milk), and he worked as a butcher (he rustled unbranded cattle from the area ranches).
In 1866 he married eighteen-year old Virginia Chavez. The had four (maybe five) children. They lived in a Mexican slum called Beantown. It was named after Roy and it wasn’t a complement (see the paragraph above).
By the late 1870’s Roy was separated from his wife and was running a saloon in Beantown. He sold the saloon and went west to Vinegaroon (scorpion), near the Pecos River. Vinegaroon was a construction camp for the Southern Pacific, which was extending the rails west.
In 1882 he was appointed justice of the peace (some say he appointed himself) for Precinct No. 6, Pecos County. His saloon was his place of business, home, and courtroom. He put up a sign on the saloon that said Law West Of The Pecos. He used only one law book, The Revised Statutes Of Texas. He allowed no hung juries or appeals. Jurors, chosen from the bar customers, were expected to buy drinks during recess.
An Irishman named O’Rourke killed a Chinese laborer. Two hundred Irish workers surrounded the court to make sure that O’Rourke was acquitted. Roy, being practical, casually thumbed through his law book. Finally he stated that there were many prohibitions against homicide, but there wasn’t anything specific about killing a Chinese. Case dismissed!
In December of 1882, he moved to Strawbridge and then to Eagle’s Nest, which was renamed Langtry. Roy said that he named it after Lillie Langtry, an English actress, with whom he was enamoured. Actually, it was probably named after a railroad engineer by that name.
He named his saloon the Jersey Lily, also after Lillie Langtry. (The misspelling was apparently the fault of the sign maker.) He was elected to the position of justice of the peace off and on for the next twenty years. Even when he wasn’t elected he continued to “hold” office. There was no jail, so all convictions resulted in fines, which he kept. The state of Texas never got its fair share. His response to the state’s demands was, “My court is self sustaining.”
When a worker died after falling three hundred feet from a viaduct, Roy didn’t feel that the $5 coroner’s fee was adequate. When the body was searched, a revolver and $40 were found. Roy fined the corpse $40 for carrying a concealed weapon.
He only sentenced two men to hang, and one of those escaped. Horse thieves, regularly hung in other areas, were freed, if the horse was returned. He had the power to marry, but not the power to grant a divorce. But he did it anyway, saying that he should have the power to rectify his mistakes. By the way, at the end of a marriage ceremony, he would say, “And may God have mercy on your souls!” (the usual end to a death sentence).
In 1890 Roy heard that Jay Gould was going to pass by on a special train. Roy stopped the train. Gould and his daughter spent the next two hours in the saloon. This caused a brief panic on Wall Street when it was reported that Gould had been killed in a train accident.
By the late 1890’s boxing matches were illegal in Texas and Mexico. So in 1896 Roy organized a championship match between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher to take place on a sandbar in the Rio Grande. The Texas Rangers looked on helplessly from a nearby bluff. The fight only lasted about a minute and a half, but the reports made Bean famous throughout the United States.
Bean spent money to help the poor and made sure that the local school’s wood box was always full.
Roy Bean died on March 16, 1903, after a bout of heavy drinking. He is buried with one of his sons in Del Rio, Texas.
As a post script, Roy always told the locals that Lillie Langtry would come and visit. Ten months after Roy’s death, she did. She spent time listening to stories about Roy. She later said that her stay was short, but unforgettable.
