Once again, I'm a little late. All day yesterday, I somehow thought it was Wednesday. Ah, well, at least I'm up to speed as of this morning. So, here's the next installment, this one is part two of the Judge Roy Bean saga.
Okay, so last time, I had us coming into the town of Ozona, and I had launched off into the true history (well, sorta true, anyway) of Judge Roy Bean, “Law West Of The Pecos.” I had just gotten him to the town of Langtry.
Take a moment and open up Google maps, or whatever is your favorite map app. Do a search for Langtry, Texas. Do you see it? It’s that little dot way, way, waaay down on border where Texas snuggles up to Mexico. That’s Langtry.
According to Wikipedia, Langtry “is an unincorporated community in Val Verde County, Texas.” Today, it has a population of...twelve. It isn’t easy to get to. It is on US 90, but that’s about it. There’s a train that goes through, but it doesn’t stop. It is not on the road to any major city. It is basically in the back of the beyond.
But, in Judge Roy’s day, it was a boom town. The railroads were coming through, and Langtry was the place they were using as a base. (And by the way, it was named after George Langtry, who was a foreman for the railroad in the area--not, as myth would have it, after Lillie Langtry, who was Roy Bean’s serious crush.) The country was full of workers (many Chinese) and their foremen, and people came swarming to serve their needs...licit and illicit.(1)
Roy Bean was one of these. That’s how he came to be there. And the need for some kind of order, regardless of the source, was how he became the Justice Of The Peace in that wild and empty space. (2)
About the photos: First, once more, Judge Bean performing his duties...albeit with bicycles rather than horses (?) This photo is from the Library of Congress and is believed to be in the public domain. It is cited as “Roy Bean. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2024693395/>.”
Second, another shot of Bean’s court. This is also from the Library of Congress, but is dated 1940. Note the caption incorrectly says the town of Langtry was named after Lillie Langtry (it wasn’t). The photo is cited: “The old headquarters of Judge Roy Bean "Law West of the Pecos". Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2024693396/>.”
And, finally, a shot of Martha on “GrandMartha’s Bench” in the town of Wimberly, Texas, during our most recent visit to that charming little town. I don’t know who GrandMartha is or was, but the photo was too good not to get.
Bean became a legend, and tales are told and retold about his mad “justice.” We hear that he was a hanging judge, condemning gunfighters and horse thieves to swing for their misdeeds...except, he doesn’t seem to have done anything of the sort. At least according to some sources, he never hanged anybody. He much preferred fines, which he pocketed, to dead men, who were absolutely no use to him or anyone. (3)
He was famous for his fines, fees, and extractions. Supposedly, he performed weddings for $5, and sold divorces for $10. He is said to have charged a dead man $40 (the amount the the man had in his pockets) for the illegal possession of a firearm when a gun was discovered in the cadaver’s clothing. As a saloon-keeper, he would sell beer to train passengers...and then decline to give them change...and they would predictably cuss him out...and then, acting as Justice Of The Peace, Bean would fine them the exact amount of the change due them for using foul language in public.
In spite of his long history of violence (or at least his reputation for it), he doesn’t seem to have been the bravest of men. Or maybe he just knew when to cut his losses. One of the most famous stories about him is that an Irish railway worker in town killed a Chinese worker. Supposedly, Bean arrested the Irishman...only to be faced with a mob of angry Irish. Supposedly (always supposedly) Bean released the accused man on the grounds that the law did not specifically say killing a Chinese person was a crime.
There are so many other stories. He arranged an illegal boxing match on a island in the Rio Grande between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher.(4) The match was a bust. It was over in less than two minutes. But it also made Bean a small fortune, and gave him enormous publicity at the same time.
And, of course, there was his famous crush on Lillie Langtry, the British actress, model, producer, and businesswoman after whom he named his bar, “The Jersey Lilly.” He never seems to have met the woman, though he did correspond with her, and, shortly after his death, Langtry visited the town and paid her respects to her famous fan.
There was, by the way, another side to Bean...maybe it was the side that adored Lillie Langtry. If he was famed for his low-level corruption, and his casual interpretation of “the law,” he was popular in his community, and was seen as its natural leader. He pocketed fines, yes, but much of that money then magically transferred itself to the town as whole. For instance, remember the dead man who was fined $40? Well, at least according to some reports, the money was spent giving him a proper burial, which otherwise might not have happened.
And, particularly as he got older, he had reputation for philanthropy. Supposedly (that word keeps coming up), he donated a good deal of his personal fortune to the poor in his area. And he made certain that the local school had firewood in winter.
He finally died in 1903 after, we’re told, a bit of heavy drinking in San Antonio. He’s now buried in Whitehead Memorial Museum in the city of Del Rio, Texas.(5) Though, of course, he lives on in popular culture as a hero and a villain and sometimes both at the same time in everything from movies to TV shows to Western novels to (no kidding) French comics.(6)
Okay, so that’s Judge Roy Bean, Law West Of The Pecos. But, you’ll notice, not much in what I’ve said here has to do with Ozona, or with Marfa. So what’s the Bean connection to those towns.
For that, you’ll have to wait until next time.
More to come.
Footnotes:
1. Langtry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langtry,_Texas
2. Just how he got the job remains, as they say, a bit of a mystery.
3. Like much else in Judge Bean’s life, this remains a bit murky. Some sources say he hanged perhaps one person. Others say that he didn’t do even that. See, for example,“The Life and Legend of Judge Roy Bean: Grand tales of the Old West come from this dying Texas town,” by G.R. Schiavino, American Cowboy, August 29, 2022. https://americancowboy.com/people/langry-texas-roy-bean-jersey-lilly-saloon/
4. “The Hide-and-Seek Fight of 1896: Not even the boxers knew where the world heavyweight bout would take place,” by Clay Coppedge, Texas Coop Power magazine, January 2012, https://texascooppower.com/the-hide-and-seek-fight-of-1896/.
5. Whitehead Memorial Museum, https://whiteheadmuseum.org/index.html
6. “Le Juge,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Juge. This entry may be merged with “List of Lucky Luke albums” which is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lucky_Luke_albums
Copyright©2024 Michael Jay Tucker
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