Of all the unusual place names in Texas, perhaps the most unique is the West Texas town of Langtry.
Judge Roy Bean was the focal point of many colorful tales but the strangest story concerns his obsession with the British actress, Lilly Langtry, who was popularly known as “The Jersey Lily.” Bean named his saloon in her honor and wrote her numerous letters, begging her to visit her namesake town in Texas.
The judge was so persistent that after several years (and his implication that the town was named for her), Lilly Langtry consented to make a stop there on a 1904 tour.
A few months before she arrived, Bean died in March 1903.
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Visit Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center, Langtry
The fabled history of the Wild West’s most famous judge is recalled at this visitors center. The visitors center includes dioramas and exhibits about Bean’s colorful career; the center also serves as a Texas Department of Transportation visitors center with information about attractions throughout the state.
Adjacent to the center stands historic The Jersey Lilly, the saloon and courtroom used by Judge Roy Bean in the 1880s. The center also includes a cactus garden with desert plants from through the Southwest; signs indicate their early uses by Native Americans and settlers.
Who Was Judge Roy Bean?
Judge Roy Bean, self-proclaimed “Law West of the Pecos,” was undoubtedly one of the most colorful characters to ever leave his mark on the American West.
From behind the bar of The Jersey Lilly, his saloon in the railroad town of Langtry, Judge Bean served up frontier justice along with beer and whiskey, leaving a mingled legacy of fact and fiction.
Deep in the canyons of Texas’s Big Bend country, the town of Langtry was created by the coming of the Southern Pacific railroad in the late 1800’s.
Outside town, Dead Man’s Gulch marks the location where the final section of track linking New Orleans and San Francisco was laid. Along with the railroad came the usual problems faced by many frontier towns of the time, an influx of rowdy construction crews and their attendant evils: fighting, stealing, gambling, and prostitution.
In response, Roy Bean, a shopkeeper in the neighboring shantytown of Vinegaroon, was named as Pecos County’s first Justice of the Peace in August of 1882.
Bean soon established a saloon/courthouse in Langtry and began his eccentric career. Tales about Judge Roy Bean swirl like sparks from a campfire. He chose his jurors from among his saloon customers. He always presided over trials with a pistol by one hand and his single book of law by the other. He kept a pet bear named Bruno.
He used his authority to bilk train passengers who ventured into his establishment. Though known as a “hanging judge” his favorite punishent was to exile offenders into the Chihuahuan desert without food, water, weapons, or money.
The original Jersey Lilly still stands in the small Texas town of Langtry. Restored by the State of Texas, the Judge’s saloon and adjacent visitor’s center attracts over 100,000 visitors each year.
Where is Langtry?
Langtry, Texas is located 1/2 mile south of US 90 on Loop 25 between Sanderson and Del Rio.
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