Roy Bean
Roy Bean was a judicial officer in Val Verde County, Texas.
Phantly Roy Bean Jr. (c. 1825–March 16, 1903) was an American saloon-keeper and justice of the peace in Val Verde County, Texas, who styled himself the "Law West of the Pecos." Operating from a billiard hall–courtroom called the Jersey Lilly in the desert hamlet of Langtry, he became one of the more theatrical figures of the late frontier era.
Born in Mason County, Kentucky, Bean drifted west in the 1840s, working in trading posts in Chihuahua, San Diego, and the New Mexico Territory before settling in San Antonio for nearly two decades. He moved to the Pecos River country in the early 1880s as the Southern Pacific Railroad pushed construction crews through the region, opening a tent saloon that followed the rail camps.
Appointed justice of the peace by the Texas Rangers in 1882, Bean ran his court from the saloon porch, holding only one law book and frequently inventing rulings to suit the case. He fined a corpse for carrying a concealed weapon, voided marriages he had performed, and famously dismissed a charge of killing a Chinese laborer on the grounds that his statute book mentioned no such offense.
In 1896 he organized a heavyweight prize fight between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher on a Rio Grande sandbar to evade Texas and Mexican law. Bean named his saloon for the English actress Lillie Langtry, whom he never met but exchanged letters with. He died of natural causes shortly before her only visit to the town.
The name Roy is an English form derived from the Old French roy, meaning "king," and from the Gaelic ruadh, meaning "red" or "red-haired." He carried it as a middle name shortened from Phantly throughout adult life.