Judge Roy Bean

We drove to Langtry, TX from Del Rio today to see the place where Judge Roy Bean held court! He was a true character who was a legend in his own time. He was appointed the first Justice of the Peace for Pecos County (Now Val Verde County) in 1882. He was a saloon keeper and held court in the bar whenever one was needed. He was known for his sentences as they were harsh even for the frontier times. There is some confusion in that some call him a hanging judge but there is no evidence he ever hanged someone. Most often he used banishment as his most potent weapon. Taking a man's horse, gun, and money he would then banish him with the threat of hanging if he ever came back to Langtry. As harsh as the surounding country was it was something to cause even the stoutest to take pause.

He flaunted the law when he promoted the Maher-Fitzsimmon prize fight in 1886. Prize fighting was against the law in Texas at the time. He overcame the legal problem by having the fight on a sandbar in the Rio Grande river on the Mexican side of the river!! I won't go into a lot of more history here as you can Google it and read a better version online!


Here Neal is in the bar. Of course this was the first place he headed!











The building on the left is his home. It is a adobe house with plaster over the adobe.
He named it Roy Beans Opera House Town Hall and Seat of Justice.







This is a picture of the bar called Jersey Lilly. The bar is on the left and the pool room is on the right.










Some pictures of how it all looked during Judge Beans lifetime.

He died in the Pool room in 1903 and is buried in Del Rio, TX