Judge Roy Bean, Law West of the Pecos
murdering your fellow man, but there's nothing here about killing a Chinaman. Case dismissed." His only punishment was that he had to pay for the dead man's burial.
One day in the saloon Mr. George Upshaw made fun of a blanket that Roy's oldest boy Sam owned. The Sam Bean and Upshaw argued and Upshaw slapped Sam in the face. Roy told Sam to shoot the man, which he promptly did. Roy gathered witnesses and promised favors to get his boy off. In an 1899 trial in Del Rio, Sam was acquitted. It cost Roy most of his savings and a lot of liquor.
In 1896 he was relieved of his duties when the votes counted for his reelection far exceeded those eligible to vote. So to stimulate income, he promoted a prizefight between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher. At that time, prizefighting had become illegal in most western states. But the world heavyweight title bout had to be fought somewhere and Bean invited them to Langtry. Bean met them at the depot. After rounds of drinks Bean led them to the river's bottomland beneath towering cliffs. Laborers had put up a small bridge and walked across to a sandbar near the Mexican shore of the Rio Grande. Then the fight went commenced on a makeshift ring. Bob Fitzsimmons beat Peter Maher quickly, knocking him out with a vicious right in only 95 seconds. Then they all went back to the saloon for more drinks. The entourage went back to El Paso where sportswriters wrote up the story. Bean's name became known far beyond Texas.
In March 1903 he went on a drinking binge in Del Rio. The next afternoon friends found him wandering helplessly around his saloon. They sent for a doctor but it was too late. He died peacefully in bed the next day at the age of 78. Ten months later the Southern Pacific stopped at Langtry. Lilly Langtry had finally come for a visit. The whole town came out to greet her. She visited the saloon with her name. People told her stories about Bean. It was a short visit but "an forgettable one," she later wrote.
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