He was born Phantly Roy Bean in Mason County, Kentucky in 1825. At sixteen years of age, he joined a crew of a flatboat headed to New Orleans. During the trip, he got into some unknown trouble and fled to San Antonio, where his brother worked as a teamster.

In 1848, the Bean Brothers opened a trading post in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Roy shot and killed a Mexican desperado! He then fled to the Mexican state of Sonora.
In 1849, Roy was in San Diego, living with his brother, Joshua. The following year, Joshua was elected the first mayor of San Diego.

Ladies considered Roy to be handsome and many were interested in him. This seems to have sparked a fit of jealousy within a man named Collins, who challenged Roy to a shooting match on horseback. Roy was given the chance of selecting the targets. He decided the two would shoot at each other! Collins was wounded in one arm and both men were arrested for assault with intent to commit murder in February, 1852.

Toward the end of his jail stay, ladies were giving Roy knives wrapped in tortillas to look like tamales! Roy put the knives to good use on April 17, 1852 and dug through the wall to freedom. He then moved to San Gabriel to be the bartender in his brother’s saloon. In November of that year, his brother was murdered and Roy inherited the saloon.

In 1854, a lady that Roy had been dating was kidnapped and forced to marry a Mexican officer. Roy challenged the new groom to a duel and killed him. Six of the groom’s friends overpowered Roy and hanged him from a tree. The unwilling bride was watching from the bushes and cut him down as soon as the men left. Roy was left with a permanent rope burn on his neck and a stiff neck as a result. He then relocated to New Mexico.

During the Civil War, the Confederacy invaded New Mexico. The Battle of Glorieta Pass proved to be a defeat for the Confederate Army, which included many Texans. The army began a retreat back to Texas. Roy decided to join them in their trip. Roy worked as a blockade runner until the war ended.

Over the two decades following the Civil War, Roy worked at various jobs. He became a teamster, then he operated a firewood business, cutting up and selling his neighbors’ timber. He also attempted to run a dairy business, but was caught watering the milk down with creek water. Legend has it that a customer found a minnow in some milk he had purchased from Roy.

On October 28, 1866 he married Virginia Chavez, eighteen years of age. Within a year, he was charged with aggravated assault and threatening his wife’s life. However, the couple stayed together long enough to have four children and lived in a poor section of San Antonio called Beanville. It was during this time that he became enamored with Lillie Langtry, actress.

While operating a saloon in Beanville, decided to move west to the developing railroad camps. One local business lady in Beanville was so eager to get rid of the unscrupulous Roy, that she bought him out, lock, stock and barrel, giving him the money to move!

He established a saloon in a tent city near the Pecos River, a place he named Vinegaroon, Texas. The nearest court was two-hundred miles away in Fort Stockton. The criminal element was drawn to Vinegaroon. On August 2, 1882, Roy Bean was appointed Justice of the Peace for the lawless and newly developed Precinct 6 of Pecos County.

After taking office, he immediately attacked a competitor’s saloon, leaving bullet holes in the shack. Roy, however, operated his saloon, then later his court from a tent! At some point, he began to refer to himself as “the law west of the Pecos“.

His court was a bit unorthodox in that it didn’t believe in foolishness like hung juries or appeals. If you were guilty - you were guilty then and there and punishment had to be swift! Usually, it meant that you were fined for whatever amount of money you had on you! But, then after the trial, somebody would usually buy you a drink in the court! In addition, jurors were usually selected from the best customers of the saloon and were expected to buy drinks during recess, sometimes afterward! In his entire career, Judge Bean only sentenced two men to die and they somehow managed to escape!

District courts were the sole source for divorces, except for Judge Bean. When he said you weren’t married anymore, then you weren’t. And that would have cost you ten dollars in Judge Bean’s court.

Later in 1882, when the railroad construction had moved westward, Roy moved his saloon and court westward to the area of Strawbridge. A saloon owner in Strawbridge laced Roy’s whiskey with kerosene. Unable to find customers for his tainted whiskey, Roy moved to an area located 20 miles west of the Pecos River called Eagle’s Nest. This name was later changed to Langtry. The area was named after a saloon owner who had sold the land to the railroad. For the next twenty years, Judge Roy Bean ran a saloon and a court on land he had no legal right to and was squatting on! It was here that the saloon that history would come to know as “The Jersey Lillie” would be built. The Jersey Lillie was named after actress Lillie Langtry, whose last name just coincidently matched that of the previous land owner. Roy’s one-sided love affair with Lillie Langtry would last for decades, until his death. He never met her!

Roy was re-elected in 1884, then lost in 1886. However, in 1887, a new precinct was established and Roy was appointed to be its justice of the peace. He was re-elected until 1896. Upon being defeated, he refused to surrender his seal, law books and court records. He still continued to hear cases north of the tracks!

In 1890, railroad tycoon Jay Gould disappeared for about two hours. This prompted immediate rumors on Wall Street that Gould had been killed in a train wreck, somewhere in west Texas. In reality, Roy had heard of Gould’s touring the region on his personal train and had local railroad workers stop the train, indicating that a bridge had washed out farther down the tracks. For about two hours, Jay Gould and his daughter were entertained in the Jersey Lillie before heading on their way. During the time of Gould’s absence, the stock market began to drop!

In 1896, he arranged a world boxing championship title match between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher to be fought on a small island in the Rio Grande. It was illegal to hold such events in Texas. The sports reports made a celebrity of him across the nation and eventually around the world.

At approximately 10 pm, in Del Rio, Texas, on March 16, 1903, after a drunken spree, he died. In passing, the legend of Judge Roy Bean was just beginning to come to life. He’s buried at the Whitehead Museum in Del Rio.

Following his death, it was learned that Judge Roy Bean had been quite generous to many charitable functions in Texas, a fact of which he would not boast, but chose to hide as much as possible.