Roy Bean was born in Mason County, Kentucky in 1825. At age 15 he left home and headed west seeking adventure. He joined his brother Samuel, who had left home in May 1845 and had hired out to drive a team for a wagon train going from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico and Chihuahua, Mexico. In 1851 the adventurous Roy Bean showed up in California, where his oldest brother, Joshua, lived. Joshua Bean earned a reputation as one of the outstanding men in southern California, and after the city of San Diego was incorporated, Josh was elected mayor.
Joshua was appointed major general of the state militia in 1851 and moved to San Gabriel. A month or so later Roy showed up and Josh put him to work at a saloon that he owned and also made Roy a lieutenant in the California Volunteers.
Roy actively participated in gambling, horse racing and some say he was a success with the ladies. It wasn't long, however before Bean’s playboy activities led to trouble: Roy challenged a man named John Collins to a duel on horseback in February 1852. Collins missed Roy Bean with two hasty fired shots, but Roy succeeded in shooting Collins in the leg with his first shot and blasting Collins’s horse with the second.
The newspaper reported on April 17, that the grand jury issued bills of indictment against John Collins and Phantly R. Bean, for assault with intent to murder and for sending and accepting a challenge. The paper also stated that “Bean having broke jail and escaped, Collins was arraigned.”
In November 1852, Joshua Bean was waylaid and killed one evening as he was returning home from his saloon. By this time, Roy apparently had gotten judicial matters taken care of and was again in circulation. He took over his brother’s operations and ran the the Headquarters saloon for a while, until he got into a knifing scrape and had to leave California. Eventually he showed up at his brother Sam’s home in Mesilla, New Mexico.
Samuel Bean had been elected sheriff of Dona Ana County, New Mexico in 1854 and also was running a combination store, restaurant, saloon, hotel, and gambling parlor.
When the Civil War errupted, Union forces took over New Mexico.The Bean brothers were Confederate sympathizers so Roy soon headed for Texas. San Antonio was a thoroughly Confederate town, which suited Roy well. Roy soon had bought wagons and was said to have been selling guns to the Confederate Army.
Roy Bean married Virginia Chavez in San Antonio October 28, 1866. Roy and Virginia lived on the Chavez land at what later became the four-hundred block of Glenn Avenue in San Antonio, and while they lived there, the area became known as Beanville. It was there that their four children, Roy Jr., Sam, Laura, and Zulema were born. The Beans divorced after a few years and Roy headed west.
In 1882 the Southern Pacific rail line established a line camp near Eagle Nest crossing, and a few days later a squatter by the name of Roy Bean showed up and settled on the land owned by the railroad. Bean wasted no time in opening a tent saloon which didn't go over to well with the local land owner named Cezario Torres, who also operated a saloon. Despite Torres attempt to get Bean thrown off the Railroad land nothing worked and along running feud developed between the two men.
Bean's saloon immediately attracted the railroad workers who were a tough lot, and rumors of the railroad camps became widely known throughout Texas. In June 1882 the railroad contractors requested that Texas Rangers be sent to the construction area to maintain order. Shortly thereafter, a detachment with a Captain Oglesby in command arrived.The outcry for a justice of the peace in that portion of Pecos County near the mouth of the Pecos River was so great that the county commissioners, had to act and do it quick. On August 2, 1882, the court met in the courthouse at Fort Stockton and on the recommendation by the Texas Rangers, Roy Bean was appointed to Justice of the peace of precinct No 6 in Pecos County Texas. | Some legends cite Bean as being a "hanging" judge, but there is no record that he ever sentenced a man to be hanged. Bean was rather a conniving individual who made his money on anyone who came before him. Bean owned only one law book and seldom used it. It was his way or no way at all. Most people who came before him were there for disorderly conduct while being drunk and were fined two to three dollars and then released after all thats how he made his money.
One story goes that Bean was going to try a man for the murder of a China Man, his friends let it be known that if the wrong verdict came back the judge would be out of luck. Judge Bean opened court took out his book and started looking through it. After about an hour he stood up and said "I've been through this book page by page and I can't find anything against the killing of a Chinese, case dismissed."
Bean was found most of the time sitting on the porch of his saloon, courtroom drinking and holding a shotgun in case someone came around that he had fined earlier and were not pleased with the outcome. In his spare time, he served customers. His favorites were railroad passengers, desperate for something to drink while the train took on water. Bean served them quickly, then lingered before giving them their change. When the train's warning whistle blew, customers swore and demanded their change. Roy then fined them the exact amount and sent them cursing back to their railroad cars.
The Judge had great admiration and fascination for the famous English actress Lillie Langtry. ( Its always been said that he named the town of Langtry after her, but the town was actually named in honer of a railroad engineer.) She was internationally know as the "The Jersey Lilly so he named his establishment after her. A sign painter hired to letter the sign misspelled "Lily". He always hoped that some day Lilly Langtry would show up. She sometimes toured western theaters so it wasn’t that unlikely that she might show up. In 1888 she performed at San Antonio. Roy took the train to San Antonio to watch her and perhaps meet her. He never did meet her, but he often wrote to her. It was rumored that she once wrote back and offered to donate an ornamental drinking fountain to the town.
One of the most colorful stories about the Judge is true. He successfully promoted the Maher - Fitzsimmons prize fight in February 1896. It was staged in defiance of U.S. and Mexico law on a sand bar in the middle of the Rio Grande River. Prize fighting was illegal at the time.
The judge had his own way of making money, its said that he onced fined a corpse 40.00 for carrying a concealed weapon, if the man had been carrying 50.00 when he died I'm sure the fine would have been more. Simple greed, prejudice and rough-handed common sense, he granted divorces when marriages didn't "take," collected coroners' fees on people still living ("Them three fellers is bound to die"). He could swear in English and Spanish but would not tolerate it in the courtroom. You could be fined just for swearing. He carried blanket warrants so he could serve them at the slightest offense. His decisions were often based on racism so ex-confederates and Irishmen got breaks and non-whites did not. He did not keep records of any of his cases. He charged five dollars to conduct an inquest or to perform a marriage or divorce, and so the story goes, Judge Roy Bean one of a kind. | | In March 1903, the Judge went on a drinking binge in Del Rio. The next afternoon friends found him wandering helplessly around his saloon. They sent for a doctor but it was too late. He died peacefully in bed the next day at the age of 78. Ten months later the Southern Pacific stopped at Langtry. Lilly Langtry had finally come for a visit. The whole town came out to greet her. She visited the saloon with her name. People told her stories about Bean. It was a short visit but “an forgettable one,” she later wrote. |
|
