Judge Roy Bean and the Saloon Court

Roy Bean arrived in Langtry, Texas, in eighteen eighty-two, set up a saloon, declared himself justice of the peace, and named the bar after a British actress he had never met. He called it the Jersey Lilly, for Lillie Langtry, the celebrated London stage performer who was the celebrity obsession of the American frontier in the way that such obsessions work when the celebrity is very far away and the frontier is very isolated.

Bean had no formal legal training. His courtroom was also his bar. When he fined a man, the fine sometimes covered a round of drinks. He presided over the only court west of the Pecos River for more than twenty years because no one sent a proper judge and no one sufficiently objected to his rulings. Accounts of his jurisprudence include the famous incident in which a dead man was found to be carrying both a pistol and about forty dollars. Bean fined the corpse for carrying a concealed weapon and pocketed the money to cover court costs.

He wrote letters to Lillie Langtry throughout his tenure. She never replied.

When Lillie Langtry finally visited Langtry, Texas, in January of nineteen oh four, Roy Bean had been dead for about ten months. She was given his pistol as a memento of the man who had named a saloon for her in the desert. The town had also given him a pet bear at some point. The bear declined transport and remained in Langtry. The frontier lets some things go and holds others.