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Judge
Phantley Roy Bean (1825-1903) - Bean was born in Mason County, Kentucky around 1825
to Phantley Roy and Anna Henderson Gore Bean. The
youngest of three sons, the Kentucky family was very poor.
At the age of 15 to follow two older brothers west. With his brother, Sam, he joined a wagon train into New Mexico, then crossed the Rio Grande and set up a trading post in Chihuahua, Mexico
in 1848.
After killing a local man, Roy fled to San Diego, California
where his brother, Joshua, lived.
On February 24, 1852, Bean was in a dual on
horseback with a Scotsman named Collins. In the Collins was shot in his right
arm and both men were arrested for assault with intent to murder. Bean, who was
considered brave and handsome by the local women, received numerous visits and
gifts during his six-week stay in jail. When one of his admirers slipped him
knives hidden in some tamales, Bean used them to dig through the cell wall and
escaped on April 17th.
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Judge Roy Bean
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Next, he wound up in San Gabriel,
California, where
his brother Joshua owned a saloon called the Headquarters Saloon. When Joshua
was killed in November, 1852, Bean inherited the saloon.
While there, Bean killed a Mexican official during an argument over a woman. Friends of the official soon hauled Bean off, lynched him and left him to die. However, he was saved by the young woman
who had been the cause of the dispute. For the rest of his life, he sported a
permanent rope burn on his neck, which constantly felt stiff.
Before long, he was back in New Mexico,
where he again lived with his brother Sam who had become the sheriff in Mesilla.
During the Civil War, the
Texas army invaded
New Mexico and Bean
soon joined them, hauling supplies for the Confederates and living in San
Antonio. On October 28, 1866, he married eighteen-year-old Virginia
Chavez, but the couple were not happy together. Just a year into the marriage,
Bean was arrested for aggravated assault on his wife. However, despite their
differences, the couple would eventually have four
children. For the next decade, the family lived in a Mexican slum area on South
Flores Street that soon earned the name of Beanville. During these years, he
worked at a number of professions including teamster, saloon operator, a dairy
business, and other entrepreneurial enterprises that were obviously not very
successful as he became known for circumventing creditors, business rivals, and
the law.
 By the early 1880s, Bean and his wife were separated and he sold
all his possessions and left San Antonio, wandering about the railroad camps
before finally settling down in west Texas
near the Pecos River. Opening up a small saloon, a tent city grew up around it,
which he called Vinegaroon and on August 2, 1882 he was appointed the Justice of
the Peace for the new precinct in Pecos County. When the town grew large enough
to establish a post office, he renamed the town Langtry after the actress of his dreams,
Lillie Langtry and also changed the name of his saloon to the Jersey Lilly.
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