Don’t know if you’re familiar with Judge Roy Bean from the late 1800s; he was known as The Law West of the Pecos. I didn’t know about him until I married Barney, and he would talk about him with the boys when they were young. I didn’t even know where the Pecos River was or why it was important. All that has changed now! At our state park headquarters, I bought a book titled Judge Roy Bean Country by Jack Skiles and have been learning so much. Let’s take off to Langtry, Texas, about 30 minutes away.
Before we get to the Judge, we need to talk about the country and how it changed in the second half of the 1800s. After Texas became a state in 1848, the push westward was on. Much of Texas was settled, but the southwest section was desolate, had little water, and was inhabited by Indians who didn’t want to leave.
Mail delivery took about a week to go from San Antonio to San Diego in the 1850s to 1870s—if it got delivered at all. The soldiers from the forts weren’t able to respond to all of the calls for help, so Lt. John Bullis and his scouts were charged with tracking down the attacking Indians who would run back across the Rio Grande and hide out in Mexico. By 1881, they pretty much made the area safe from the Indians, and the railroad and settlers could start coming in. Bullis and his Seminole scouts made a huge difference along the Rio Grande.
The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, and the railroad men wanted to do the same project in the south from New Orleans to California. One group made up of European nationalities came from the east and another from California of Chinese who had worked on the first railroad. They were going to meet around Langtry.
The problem? The Pecos River. By the time it emptied into the Rio Grande, it was deep and wide; too deep and wide to cross over. Their first attempt was to run the railroad down the side of the Pecos to the Rio Grande, blast a tunnel through the rock, build a normal bridge across the Pecos, blast another tunnel through more rock, and run the railroad back up to the top of the canyon.
But this added on too much time to the railroad trip, and an engineer figured out how to build a high bridge across the Pecos.
An engineering marvel.
At our state park, they show where the original railroad went through:
toward the Rio Grande 
going the other direction,
only one set of rails
so rain from flash floods can go underneath it
Here’s the Pecos today.
south toward Rio Grande 
looking north
The railroad was completed in January 1883. The year after Lt. Bullis left the Pecos River/Rio Grande area in 1881, Judge Roy Bean moved in with the railroad and began to make his mark. He had started out driving mule teams transporting supplies for the railroad as they were building the tracks, but realized he wanted a permanent place to live and do business. Since he had a booming voice (from driving mule teams) and a commanding presence, he was made a justice of the peace for the area west of the Pecos, and he set up shop on the front porch of his saloon on nice days and inside on bad days.
Bean advertised “cold beer” on the side of his saloon, and we wondered where he got his ice? The book I’m reading said San Antonio was the center for refrigeration of ice that could be shipped on the trains.
inside, pretty small 
the bar area
Since he didn’t have a jail, his only recourse was to charge fines, which he did liberally. Here’s one of his creative decisions.
He built his home behind the saloon and called it the Opera House in hopes that Lilly Langtry would actually come to perform. But it was just a one-room building.
The inside has whitewashed walls, but here’s what they were really made from and what they looked like then.
The visitors center is where the railroad station would have been, the street is where the railroad tracks were, and his saloon is just behind the trees on the left side. The railroad let him have this space on their land because of how well he cleaned up the area as judge.
Bean didn’t like being told what to do and he liked making money. So he sponsored a prize fight even though it was against the law in the U.S. and the Mexican government was against it too. He outsmarted both countries by not advertising the location, bringing in the spectators by train at the last minute, building a bridge over the Rio Grande just outside of town, and staging the fight on a sandbar just inside Mexico. Didn’t last long, but Bean made money and everyone heard about him.
view toward the river 
another view toward Mexico
Langtry was a busy place when the railroad came through
But it’s a sleepy area now. It has a post office, an RV park, and a few homes. Here are some homes from years past.
Behind the visitors center is a cactus garden that was so interesting.
Texas bluebonnets 
And a real live roadrunner carrying his dinner in his mouth!
Now this windmill was interesting.
delivered by the railroad, and put together onsite
We had a wonderful talk with Becki, who works at the visitors center. She’s been in southwest Texas for 6 years after meeting her husband online through a dating site for ranchers/country people! She knew the hard work of farming from growing up on a farm in northwest Missouri. She and her husband grow sheep and goats. It takes about 5 acres to support raising 1 sheep. That’s a lot of land. About 98% of the land around here is privately owned by ranchers.
We asked her about this dirt road that we saw all along Hwy. 90 next to the fenced off land with entrances and exits. She said these were Border Patrol roads.
We had seen these tires every once in a while along the road
Becki said the Border Patrol drags the tires behind their trucks to smooth out the roads. Periodically they drive back along the roads; if they see footprints, they know folks have crossed it and have a good idea of where to look for them. So creative and low-tech.
We have one more day here and hope to get in a hike around the park!
