1. Early life

2. Move to Texas
    Justice of the peace 

3. Later years and death

4. Films, books and television
    Onscreen  On paper  Namesake locations 

5. References

6. Further reading

7. External links

Phantly Roy Bean, Jr. (c. 1825 – March 16, 1903) was an eccentric American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas, who called himself "The Law West of the Pecos". According to legend, he held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande on a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of southwest Texas. After his death, Western films and books cast him as a hanging judge, although he is known to have sentenced only two men to hang, one of whom escaped.

Early life

Roy Bean was born in 1825 in Mason County, Kentucky and was the youngest of five, (four sons and a daughter), of Phantly Roy Bean, Sr. (November 21, 1804 – June 13, 1844) and the former Anna Henderson Gore. The family was extremely poor and at age sixteen Bean left home to ride a flatboat to New Orleans hoping to find work. After getting into trouble in New Orleans, Bean fled to San Antonio, Texas to join his older brother Sam.^[2] Samuel Gore "Sam" Bean (1819–1903), who had earlier migrated to Independence, Missouri, was a teamster and bullwhacker.^[3] He hauled freight to Santa Fe and then on to Chihuahua, Mexico. After Sam fought in the Mexican–American War he moved out of San Antonio where his brother Roy joined him.^[2][4] In 1848 the two brothers opened a trading post in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Soon after, Roy Bean shot and killed a Mexican desperado who had threatened "to kill a gringo."^[2] To escape being charged with murder by Mexican authorities Roy and Sam Bean fled west to Sonora, Mexico. By the spring of 1849 Roy Bean had moved to San Diego, California, to live with his older brother Joshua Bean who would be elected the first Mayor of San Diego the following year.^[2]

Considered handsome, Roy Bean competed for the attentions of various local women. A Scotsman named John Collins challenged Bean to a pistol-shooting match on horseback. Bean was left to choose the targets and decided that they would shoot at each other. The duel was fought on February 24, 1852 and ended with Collins receiving a wound to his right arm.^[2] Both men were arrested and charged with assault with intent to murder. In the two months that he was in jail Bean received many gifts of flowers, food, wine and cigars from women in San Diego. Hidden in the final gifts he received while incarcerated were knives that were encased in tamales. Bean used the knives to dig through the cell wall and he escaped on April 17, 1852. He then fled to San Gabriel, California where he became a bartender in his brother's "Headquarters Saloon". After Joshua was murdered in November 1852 Bean inherited the saloon.^[2] In 1854 Bean courted a young woman who was subsequently kidnapped and forced to marry a Mexican officer. Bean challenged the groom to a duel and killed him. Six of the dead man's friends put Bean on a horse and tied a noose around his neck leaving him to hang when the horse moved. When he was hanged the rope stretched, and Bean was able to stay alive.^[5] The bride, who had been hiding behind a tree, cut the rope, freeing him and saving his life. This experience left Bean with a permanent rope burn and a stiff neck for the rest of his life.^[2] Shortly thereafter Roy Bean chose to leave California and migrated to New Mexico to live with Sam who had been elected the first sheriff of Doña Ana County.^[2][4][2] In 1861 Samuel G. and Roy Bean operated a store and saloon on Main Street in Pinos Altos (just north of Silver City) in present-day Grant County, New Mexico. It advertised liquor and "a fine billiard table." A cannon belonging to Roy Bean sat in front of the store for show and had been used to repel an Apache assault on the town.^[6]

Move to Texas

During the Civil War the Confederate Army had invaded New Mexico. During the Battle of Glorieta Pass, in March 1862, the Confederates lost their supply wagons and were forced to retreat to San Antonio. After taking money from his brother's safe, Bean joined the retreating army. For the remainder of the war, he ran the naval blockade by hauling cotton from San Antonio to British ships off the coast at Matamoros and returning with needed supplies.^[2] For the next twenty years Bean lived in San Antonio, working nominally as a teamster. During this time he attempted to run a firewood business by cutting down a neighbor's timber. He then tried to run a dairy business but was soon caught watering down the milk. Bean later worked as a butcher rustling unbranded cattle from other area ranchers for his business.^[7][2]

On October 28, 1866, he married eighteen-year-old Virginia Chavez.^[3] Within a year after being married he was arrested for aggravated assault and threatening his wife's life.^[2] Despite the tumultuous marriage, they had four children together - Roy Jr., Laura, Zulema and Sam.^[2] The family lived in what was described as "a poverty-stricken Mexican slum area called Beanville".^[8] Beanville would have been centered near the current day corner of South Flores Street and Glenn Avenue not far from Burbank High School.^[2] By the late 1870s Bean was operating a saloon in Beanville and had heard that many construction camps were opening as several railroad companies were working to extend the railroads west.^[2] A store owner in Beanville "was so anxious to have this unscrupulous character out of the neighborhood" that she bought all of Bean's possessions for $900 so that he could leave San Antonio. At the time Bean and his wife were separated and he left his children with friends as he prepared to go west.^[2]

Justice of the peace

With the money he received Bean purchased a tent, some supplies to sell and ten 55-gallon barrels of whiskey. By the spring of 1882, he had established a small saloon near the Pecos River in a tent city he named Vinegaroon.^[9] Within {{convert|20|mi}} of the tent city were 8,000 railroad workers. The nearest court was {{convert|200|mi}} away at Fort Stockton, and there was little means to stop illegal activity. A Texas Ranger requested that a local law jurisdiction be set up in Vinegaroon, and on 2 August 1882, Bean was appointed justice of the peace for the new Precinct 6 in Pecos County.^[2] His first case, however, was heard earlier, on 25 July 1882, when Texas Rangers brought in Joe Bell to be tried.^[10]

One of his first acts as a justice of the peace was to "shoot [...] up the saloon shack of a Jewish competitor".^[2] Bean then turned his tent saloon into a part-time courtroom and began calling himself the "Law West of the Pecos."^[2] As a judge, Bean relied on a single law book, the 1879 edition of the Revised Statutes of Texas, and when newer law books showed up he used them as kindling.^[8][2] Bean did not allow hung juries or appeals. Jurors, who were chosen from his best bar customers, were expected to buy a drink during every court recess.^[2] He was also known for his unusual rulings. In one case, an Irishman named Paddy O'Rourke shot a Chinese laborer. During the trial, a mob of 200 angry Irishmen surrounded the courtroom and saloon, threatening to lynch Bean if O'Rourke was not freed. After looking through his law book, Bean ruled that "homicide was the killing of a human being; however, he could find no law against killing a Chinaman", and subsequently dismissed the case.^[2][11] On another occasion, upon finding the corpse of a man who had been carrying concealed weapons and $40 on his person when he had died, the judge imposed a posthumous $20 fine upon the man for having carried the concealed weapons. Bean, whose court/saloon was in need of money at the time, also collected a burial fee of $10 and $10 in court costs.^[5]

By December 1882, railroad construction had moved farther westward and Bean moved his courtroom and saloon {{convert|70|mi}} to Strawbridge (now Sanderson). He sent for his children, who then lived with him at the saloon, with his youngest son Sam sleeping on a pool table.^[2] A competitor who was already established in the area laced Bean's whiskey with kerosene.^[7] Unable to attract customers, Bean left the area and moved to Eagle's Nest, {{convert|20|mi}} west of the Pecos River, which was soon renamed Langtry.^[2]

The original owner of the land, who ran a saloon, had sold {{convert|640|acre|km2|2}} to the railroad on the condition that no part of the land could be sold or leased to Bean. O'Rourke, the Irishman whose case Bean had previously dismissed, told Bean to use the railroad right-of-way, which was not covered by the contract, and for the next 20 years Bean squatted on land he had no legal right to use.^[8][9][2] Bean named his new saloon The Jersey Lilly in honor of Lillie Langtry, who recounted in her autobiography that she had visited the area after Bean's death.^[8][2][12] Langtry did not have a jail and all cases were settled by fines. Bean refused to send the state any part of the fines, and kept all of the money.^[11] In most cases the fines were made for the exact amount the accused person was carrying. During his term as a judge, Bean is known to have sentenced only two men to hang, one of whom escaped. Horse thieves, who were often sentenced to death in other jurisdictions, were always let go if the horses were returned to their owners.^[7][2] Although only district courts were legally allowed to grant divorces, Bean did so anyway, and pocketed $10 for each divorce.^[7] He charged $5 for weddings, and ended all wedding ceremonies with the phrase "and may God have mercy on your souls" (a traditional saying when a death sentence is carried out).^[7][2] Bean won re-election to his post in 1884, but was defeated in 1886. The following year the commissioner's court created a new precinct in the county and appointed Bean to be the new justice of the peace. He continued to be re-elected until 1896. Even after that election defeat he "refused to surrender his seal and law book and continued to try all cases north of the tracks".^[2]

Later years and death

In 1890, Bean received word that railroad developer and speculator Jay Gould was planning to pass through Langtry on a special train. Bean flagged down the train using a danger signal. Thinking the bridge was out the train engineer stopped the train. Bean then invited Gould and his daughter to visit the saloon as his guests. The Goulds visited for two hours, causing a brief panic on the New York Stock Exchange when it was reported that Gould had been killed in a train crash.^[2] In 1896 Bean organized a world championship boxing title bout between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher on an island in the Rio Grande because boxing matches were illegal in both Texas and Mexico.^[8] The fight, won by Fitzsimmons, lasted only 1 minute and 35 seconds but the resulting sport reports spread Bean's fame throughout the United States.^[2] In the last years of his life Bean met surveyor and civil engineer W. D. Twichell. Based primarily in Amarillo and later Austin Twichell surveyed 165 of the 254 Texan counties. As he aged, Bean spent much of his profits helping the poor of the area and always made sure that the local schoolhouse had free firewood in winter.^[2] Roy Bean died peacefully in his bed on 16 March 1903 after a bout of heavy drinking in San Antonio. He and his son, Sam Bean (1874–1907), are interred at the Whitehead Memorial Museum in Del Rio.^[2][13] In 1965, as part of the Civil War Centennial commemoration in Texas, an official Texas Historical Marker honoring Roy Bean was erected on the museum grounds in Del Rio, Texas.^[14]

Films, books and television

Onscreen

• Fact or Fiction, a television series in which episode 16 features a segment inspired by an actual event, in which the ghost of Judge Bean and his dog were claimed to have cleaned out a cheat's money.
• The Gambler: Luck of the Draw, a television movie, starring Kenny Rogers and Reba McEntire, that features Judge Roy Bean as a character.
• Judge Roy Bean, a fictionalized 1956 syndicated television series. Edgar Buchanan portrayed Bean; Jackie Loughery co-starred as Bean's niece, Letty; Jack Buetel, who had played Billy the Kid in the film The Outlaw, appeared as Jeff Taggert; and series producer Russell Hayden twice played a Texas Ranger named Steve.
• In the episode "Law West of the Pecos" (June 7, 1959) of the ABC/Warner Brothers western television series, Colt .45, Frank Ferguson is cast as Judge Bean. Lisa Gaye portrays June Webster and Douglas Kennedy is cast as Jay Brisco.^[15]
• The western anthology series Death Valley Days episode "A Picture of a Lady", first broadcast on December 30, 1965, depicts Lillie Langtry (Francine York) traveling to Langtry after the death of Judge Bean (Peter Whitney). Paul Fix was cast in the episode as Bean's friend, Doc Lathrop.^[16]
• In another Death Valley Days episode, "A Sense of Justice" (1966), Tom Skerritt played a young Bean while he was in San Diego, California, with his older brother, Joshua, played by Tris Coffin. In the story line, Roy is jailed after he gets into a fight with a local man; Joshua is unsympathetic at his brother's plight.^[17]
• The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), a heavily fictionalized biopic, starred Paul Newman as Bean.
• In the third season Fantasy Island episode "Legend" (October 1982), Andy Griffith plays the role of Judge Roy Bean.
• The Westerner (1940) features Roy Bean (played by Walter Brennan) as one of the main characters, for which Brennan won a Supporting Actor Academy Award. The movie gives Bean an entirely fictitious death scene.
• Lillie (1978), Tommy Duggan played the role in this British miniseries biopic of Lillie Langtry.
• Streets of Laredo, a 1995 TV mini-series, based on the Larry McMurtry novel of the same name, includes a portrayal of Bean by Ned Beatty, who had a supporting role in the 1972 film, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.
• A Time for Dying was a 1969 film portraying the Vinegaroon period; Audie Murphy starred and Victor Jory played a half-crazed Judge Roy Bean.
• In the second season The Monkees episode, "The Devil and Peter Tork", Billy Beck played Judge Bean, presiding over the trial between Peter and the Devil.
• Judge Roy Bean was referenced in The Sopranos episode "Live Free Or Die."

On paper

• Le Juge (The judge), by Morris et Goscinny is a Lucky Luke Belgian comic book from 1959.
• Streets of Laredo (1993), a novel by Larry McMurtry depicts a fictionalized version of Judge Roy Bean.
• West of the Pecos (1937), a novel by Zane Grey, features him as a minor character.
• Vinegaroon: The Saga of Judge Roy Bean, "Law West of the Pecos". (1936) a biography by Ruel McDaniel, Southern Publishers, Kingsport, Tenn.
• He encounters a younger Scrooge McDuck in Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.

Namesake locations

• The wooden roller coaster Judge Roy Scream at Six Flags Over Texas is named for Bean.
• Fairhope Brewing Company in Fairhope, Alabama brews a vanilla coffee stout beer named for Bean.^[19]
• A bar in Simi Valley, CA is named "Judge Roy Bean's."
• The Judge Roy Bean Saloon in Bristol, RI.
• A BBQ restaurant in Brentwood, Tennessee is named “Judge Beans”, and features Texas inspired recipes.^[20]
• A bar and restaurant just south of Central Park in New York City is named the Judge Roy Bean Public House.
• Roy Bean's House of Justice and Jelly Beans in the comedy adventure video game West of Loathing, made by Asymmetric Publications.

References

Further reading

• C.L. Sonninchsen. Roy Bean: The Law West of Pecos. 1943. {{ISBN|0-8263-0846-5}}.
• Jack Skiles. Judge Roy Bean Country. Texas Tech University Press. {{ISBN|0-89672-369-0}}.
• {{citation|last=Davis|first=Joe Tom|title=Legendary Texians, Volume II|publisher=Eakin Press|place=Austin, Texas|year=1985|isbn=0-89015-473-2}}.
• Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association: Bean, Roy
• Strong, W. F. (November 29, 2017). "The Surprising Lesson Of Judge Roy Bean's Life: It's Never Too Late"

External links

• {{IMDb title|id=0068853|title=The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean}}
• {{IMDb title|id=0033253|title=The Westerner}}
• {{IMDb title|id=0048879|title=Judge Roy Bean}}
• {{Find a Grave|1339}}

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