It was either 1825 or 1826 when Roy Bean was born. And before he was a judge he worked as a trader, a barkeeper and a smuggler. At the ripe old age of 56 he began his illustrious twenty year law career.

The judge started a saloon in the west Texas town of Langtry right where the Pecos and Rio Grande rivers joined and was a meeting place for up to 8,000 railroad workers, gamblers, thieves, and rustlers. Bean dispensed justice at one end of the bar while at the other drinking and gambling. It wasn’t above Roy to recess court to sell liquor or play poker. Before he was appointed justice of the peace the Texas Rangers would bring prisoners to Bean for judgment. Roy taught himself the ways of the law and dealt out justice accordingly, as long as he agreed with it, if not just ignored it. Due to the fact he found reading hard to comprehend it is not a surprise that many of his judgments was strange to say the least and often unfair.

The Judge was also the local coroner. One time after a worker fell to his death, Roy being the justice of the peace declared the man dead and then had to bury him since he was also the coroner. Being irritated at this Roy searched the body and found $40 cash and a gun, so as justice of the peace found the corpse guilty of carrying a gun and promptly fined him $40.

Roy was infatuated with the English actress Lily Langtry. Bean was married however he was devoted to Langtry, and named his saloon fro her “The Jersey Lily”.

“The only law west of the Pecos” as he had come to be known came to a rest with the passing of Judge Roy Bean in 1904.