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January 18, 2000
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The
following day (1-18) turned out to be a great day.
There were no National Parks, no spectacular scenery, and
just one point of interest, but the sun was warm, the wind was
calm, the hills were modest and the traffic was light.
As
I left Sanderson, I also left the mountains of west Texas. They turned into rolling hills, providing a scenic, but not
difficult, path to Seminole
Canyon State Park near Comstock.
Today was my last sight of western mountains with their
barren, rocky tops, and I will miss them.
The
campground at Seminole Canyon was nice.
It sits on a knoll west of the canyon and affords a
beautiful view of the sun setting behind the western mountains. I
just sat at my picnic table until the last vestiges of red were
gone and the final streak of blue was fading to black. Then after a shower, I took a walk out into the desert
beneath a nearly full moon, saw a shadowed jackrabbit and heard
crickets chirping all around.
Today was the end of the eighth month of my journey, but I
still have four months to go, and I’m still greatly enjoying
what I’m doing. I
still believe that this journey will set the direction for the
rest of my life.
The
point of interest for the day was in Langtry – the saloon and
courtroom of Judge
Roy Bean – The Law West of the Pecos.
I’m not talking about two separate buildings, mind you.
Rather, the Judge owned a saloon (and billiard hall) and
held court in the saloon, or on the porch if the weather was nice,
as needed. He was one of the most |
colorful
characters of the Old West, and one of the most unconventional judges to
convene a court anytime, anywhere.
He only owned one law book (the 1879 Revised Statutes of Texas),
and seldom referred to it.
He dispensed justice as he saw fit, and a typical sentence was “a
$30 fine [which went in the Judge’s pocket] and a round of drinks for
the jury” (which, of course, also went in the Judge’s pocket).
His favorite “line” seems to have been “Court’s adjourned
– and the bar is open.”
Some
legends cite Roy Bean as a “hanging judge” (and that was certainly my
perception), but there is no record that he ever sentenced a man to be
hanged. Rather, his harshest
sentence was to fine a man of every cent and valuable (including his gun)
and expel him from Langtry with the threat of the noose should he ever
show up again.
Tales
of the Judge were told so often around the Old West that he became a
legend in his own time. Many
of these tales were pure fiction, but some certainly had basis in fact.
One example of historical fact is his successful promotion of a
prize fight (Maher-Fitzsimmons) in February, 1896 in defiance of U.S. and
Mexican law, which at the time forbade this kind of activity. He staged the fight on a sandbar in the middle of the Rio
Grande River, just a couple of blocks from his home in Langtry, but out of
reach of the authorities.
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I
got a laugh when I crossed the Pecos River east of Langtry. It’s a beautiful canyon with a high bridge on U.S. 90 that
must be nearly 200 feet above the shallow, meandering river.
There is a sign at each end of the bridge that says “No
Diving from Bridge.” Duh! |
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This page was last updated on 01/30/02
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(Great
Adventures to Scenic Places)
