Bean, Roy : 1825-1903

Roy Bean (1825-1903)
American frontier justice of the peace and colorful figure of the West, was born in mason County, Kentucky.  After working as a teamster, trader and saloonkeeper in the Southwest, he settled in San Antonio, Texas.  He aided the Confederates during the Civil War.

Bean worked at construction camps of the Southern Pacific Railroad as a saloonkeeper, and in 1882 settled at Vinegaroon (later Langtry), Texas.  There he was justice of the peace and became known as “the law west of the Pecos”.  The saloon in Vinegaroon was his courtroom; he issued decisions, often humorous and unusual, with a lawbook and a six-shooter.

~ The Lincoln Library of Essential Information, Volume 2, Thirty-Fifth Edition, 1972, Biography, Page 1723.

You can visit the memorial page for Roy Bean.