Bean, Roy, c.1825–1903, legendary American frontier judge, b. Mason co., Ky. He left Kentucky in 1847 to seek his fortune in California. Soon, however, he was managing a trading post in Chihuahua, Mexico. In 1849 he was chased back into U.S. territory for cattle rustling. During the Civil War, Roy Bean aided the Confederate cause by joining a band of lawless irregulars. After the war he followed the construction camps of the Southern Pacific RR as a saloonkeeper and gambler. In 1882, Bean settled at the Texas camp of Vinegaroon, had it renamed Langtry (for the English actress Lily Langtry), named himself justice of the peace (to which he added the title "the law west of the Pecos"), and set up court in his saloon, the Jersey Lily. He there began to dispense justice with the aid of one law book and a six-shooter. As a judge, Bean rendered arbitrary and unorthodox decisions, usually tempered with wit and common sense.

Bibliography

See biographies by C. L. Sonnichsen (1943, repr. 1953) and E. Lloyd (rev. ed. 1967).

Bean, Roy

(born 1825?, Mason county, Ky., U.S.—died March 16, 1903, Langtry, Texas) U.S. justice of the peace and saloonkeeper. He left Kentucky in 1847 and moved from town to town, killing at least two men in duels, before settling in Texas. During the American Civil War he first served with Confederate regulars and then was a blockade runner in Texas, becoming so prosperous that he was able to live at ease in San Antonio for some 16 years. In 1882 he moved to a site on the lower Pecos River that he named for Lillie Langtry, opened a saloon, and dispensed hard, commonsensical, and prankish rulings as an unofficial magistrate, styling himself the “law west of the Pecos.”

Bean, “Judge” Roy (?1825–1903) frontier figure; born in Mason County, Ky. He left Kentucky for California in 1847, and seems to have spent the next 15 years in such enterprises as goldseeking and cattlerustling. He joined a band of Confederate irregulars during the Civil War and then followed the railroad construction crews as a saloonkeeper and gambler. In 1882 he settled in the Texas camp of Vinegaroon; he had it renamed Langtry after his idol, the English actress Lillie Langtry, then set himself up as justice of the peace, "the law west of the Pecos." Holding court in his saloon, "The Jersey Lily," he threatened to use his six-shooter to enforce his notion of justice. In 1898 he gained national attention for staging a boxing match on a sandbar in the middle of the Rio Grande (to avoid the ban on boxing in Texas), featuring the heavyweight champion, Bob Fitzsimmons.