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Some
people remain forever faithful to their partners, some have affairs
and some have torrid liaisons only in their minds.
Judge
Roy Bean, for example, pined for a woman he never met. The famed
"Law
West of the Pecos" and owner-operator of the Jersey
Lilly Saloon had a fantasy fling with British-born actress Lilly
Langtry. He fell in "love" after seeing images of her in print.
The beautiful Langtry, however, had affairs of the real kind. In
fact, she had affairs while having affairs. Whether Bean knew his
imaginary sweetheart was two-or-three-timing him, her propensity
for connecting with more than one man at a time was common knowledge
abroad. And there is no shortage of evidence.
In the fall of 1978, a long-lost trove of her love letters sold
at auction in London for the U.S. equivalent (at the time) of $16,000.
Her correspondent was one Arthur Henry Jones, later described as
a "gentleman of leisure." More recently, a scrapbook filled with
photos of Langtry came to light. The original owner, the Prince
of Wales (and future king of England) had been one of Langtry's
paramours. Several other lovers of the twice-married Langtry also
have been identified.
While the actress clearly entertained no serious obligation to monogamy,
she certainly had ladylike standards. The men she chose to spend
quality time with all possessed good looks, healthy physiques and
money. Being of nobility made a gentleman all the more attractive.
Alas, the lovelorn Bean
was no catch, at least not by the time he opened his bar and general
store at a remote coal and water stop along the southern transcontinental
railroad in far West Texas.
To catalog some of his more prominent characteristics, he was a
bigot, a boozer, a con man, and a gambler. In addition, he was fat,
hairy, unkempt, unmannered and essentially interested in the rule
of law only when it benefited him. Oh, and he could be as mean as
a rattlesnake with a bellyache. On the plus side, at least from
a woman's standpoint, he did have a job.
Bean
derived his main source of income from selling beer, whiskey and
general goods to rail workers, cowhands and passengers just passing
through, but he also profited from holding public office. Since
Aug. 2, 1882, he had served as a justice of the peace, the first
rung in the state judicial system. In administering justice to those
accused of misdemeanors or in performing the duties of coroner (he
once fined a dead man for carrying a pistol after he found money
in the pocket of the deceased), he made money off court costs and
other fees. Contrary to legend, as a JP he had no authority in felony
cases to do anything more than issue arrest or search warrants,
set bond and bind a case over for grand jury consideration. In other
words, though it has been claimed, he could not order a man hanged.
Legend also holds that Bean
named Langtry,
Texas in honor of Lilly Langtry, but more likely, the town was
named after a railroad official. What Bean
did do was name his saloon after the actress, who having been born
on the Isle of Jersey in 1853 had come to be called the Jersey Lilly.
No missives from Bean
were found in the collection of the love letters that came to light
in the 1970s. "He (Bean)
claimed he had written her and gotten letters, but we can't find
the letters," Jack Skiles, then superintendent of the Judge Roy
Bean Visitor's Center in Langtry
said the day after the London auction.
But the museum in Bean's
restored saloon does have on display a letter from Langtry, but
it was written to W.H. Dodd, Bean's
successor. The letter, penned in San Francisco on Jan. 14, 1904,
underscores the fact that even imaginary affairs can take heart-breaking
turns.
His desire for Lady Langtry unrequited, in the early spring of 1903
Bean took sick on a visit to San
Antonio. He returned to Langtry,
where he died in his billiard room that March 16. On tour in the
states, the famed actress passed through her supposed namesake town
10 months later.
"Miss Langtry visited Langtry
a few months after the judge passed away," Skiles said.
Her letter to Dodd was to thank him for the nice reception he had
arranged. Dodd had turned over to her Bean's
"fancy" revolver, and later sent her some resurrection plants, a
type of fern that looks dead but revives when placed in water.
"I thank you most heartily for all your kindness," she wrote. "I
shall be so interested in the future of Langtry
and I hope it will go on thriving..."
Langtry the lady continued to thrive until her death at 75 in 1929.
By that time, in a figurative sense Langtry
the town lay toes up, commercially comatose in the desert of Val
Verde County. Thanks to the Judge Roy Bean Visitor's Center
the town technically still exists, but that Texas Department of
Transportation facility is the only thing keeping Langtry
from full ghost town status.
Today it doesn't even have a post office, but then people don't
mail love letters like they used to, either. Love and lust, of course,
endure.
© Mike
Cox
"Texas Tales" February
16, 2017 column
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