Roy Bean
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Phantly Roy Bean Jr. was an American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas, who called himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos". According to legend, he held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande on a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of southwest Texas. After his death, fictional Western films and books cast him as a hanging judge, although he is known to have sentenced only two men to hang, one of whom escaped.
Roy Bean
Roy Bean holding court while sitting on a barrel and holding his law book at his Jersey Lilly Saloon, 1900s
The Jersey Lilly Saloon in September 2005
Jersey Lilly historical marker
Western saloon
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A Western saloon is a kind of bar particular to the Old West. Saloons served customers such as fur trappers, cowboys, soldiers, lumberjacks, businessmen, lawmen, outlaws, miners, and gamblers. A saloon might also be known as a "watering trough, bughouse, shebang, cantina, grogshop, and gin mill". The first saloon was established at Brown's Hole, Wyoming, in 1822, to serve fur trappers.
The Jersey Lilly, Judge Roy Bean's saloon in Langtry, Texas, c. 1900
Temperance illustration of drunkard hitting his wife
Gambling at the Orient Saloon in Bisbee, Arizona, c.1900. Photograph by C.S. Fly.
The 1885 Beer Bottle Sidewalk in front of Jim Cotton's Saloon on Washington Street in Phoenix, Arizona