On the road between the town of Del Rio and Marathon, we stopped at the Judge Roy Bean Museum - what a hoot!
Bean was the West's most colorful Justice of the Peace and ruled America's last frontier in the last decades of the 19th century. He was the proprietor of a "store" in Vinegroon, a tent-topped construction camp, and was appointed Justice in 1882. The next year he moved his court to Langtry.
-----Justice was swift in Bean's court. When an accused was brought in, he removed his towelling apron, took out his law book and notary seal, and called a jury from among his customers. There is no record that he ever sentenced a man to be hanged.
