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Description:
Beautifully engraved unissued certificate from the Blue Hills Ranch Company printed in 1908. This historic document has an ornate border around it with a vignette of an eagle with a underprint of clouds. This item is over 92 years old.
Val Verde County includes the City of Del Rio, Langtry, Comstock and Laughlin Air Force Base. Val Verde is also famous for being the home of Judge Roy Bean, referred to as "the Law West of the Pecos". Judge Roy Bean and Lily Langtry are the only two reasons to remember the town of Langtry. The town started as a grading camp during the building of the Southern Pacific railroad in 1882 to connect New Orleans and San Antonio with Los Angeles and San Francisco. Why the town was named Langtry is a bit uncertain. Legend has it that Judge Roy Bean became so enamored with pictures of the English singer that it was he who gave the town its name of Langtry, The Judge is remembered in history for not having an established pattern for rendering judgements but his judgements were always sound. Langtry became a ranching community and had a population of several hundred around the turn of the century. Today it has only a few occupied homes but it does have the Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center that preserves the second of two buildings that housed Roy Bean's saloon, billiard parlor, and courtroom. The town is on Loop 25 off of U.S. Highway 90 about 40 miles east of Dryden. According to the myth, Roy Bean named his saloon and town after the love of his life, Lily Langtry, a British actress he'd never met. Calling himself the "Law West of the Pecos," he is reputed to have kept a pet bear in his courtroom and sentenced dozens to the gallows, saying "Hang 'em first, try 'em later." Like most such legends, separating fact from fiction is not always so easy. Western Ramblings Roy Bean was born in Mason County, Kentucky about 1825. At age 15 he left home to follow two older brothers west seeking adventure. With Brother Sam, he joined a wagon train into New Mexico, then crossed the Rio Grande and set up a trading post in Chihuahua, Mexico. After killing a local hombre, Roy fled to California, to stay with his brother Joshua, who would soon become the first mayor of San Diego. There, Roy developed a reputation for bragging, dueling and gambling on cockfights. Mayor Josh Bean appointed Roy a lieutenant in the state militia and bartender of the Headquarters, his own saloon. In 1852, Roy was arrested after wounding a man in a duel. He escaped, and after Mayor Josh was killed a few months later by a rival in a romantic triangle, Roy headed back to New Mexico where brother Sam Bean had become a sheriff. Roy tended bar in Sam's saloon for several years while smuggling guns from Mexico through the Union blockade during the Civil War. Afterward, he married a Mexican teenager and settled in San Antonio, where throughout the 1870s, he supported 5 children by peddling stolen firewood and selling watered-down milk. His notorious business practices eventually earned his San Antonio neighborhood the nickname Beanville. West of the Pecos In 1882, the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad hired crews to link San Antonio with El Paso, Texas across 530 miles of scorching Chihuahuan Desert, infested with bobcats, rattlesnakes and scorpions (locally called vinegaroons by local Texans). Fleeing his marriage and illegal businesses in San Antonio, Roy headed to Vinegaroon to become a saloonkeeper, serving railroad workers whiskey from a tent. As his own best customer, he was often drunk and disorderly. But with the nearest courtroom a week's ride away, and County Commissioners eager to establish some sort of local law enforcement. They appointed Roy Bean Justice of the Peace for Precinct No. 6, Pecos County, Texas. Roy was just crazy, or drunk enough to accept. He packed up and moved north from Vinegaroon to a small tent city on a bluff above the Rio Grande named Langtry in honor of a railroad boss who had run the Southern Pacific's tracks through it. The name also happened to belong to a beautiful British actress, Lillie Langtry Roy had read about and become enchanted with. Roy built a small saloon, he named the Jersey Lilly (Lillie's moniker) which also served as his home. He hung a tattered picture of Miss Lillie behind the bar, and above the door, posted signs proclaiming "ICE COLD BEER" and "LAW WEST OF THE PECOS." From here Roy Bean began dispensing liquor, justice and various tall tales, including that he himself had named the town for actress Lillie Langtry. Dispenser of "Justice" Roy Bean's justice was not complicated by legalities; it was characterized by greed, prejudice, a little common sense and lots of colorful language. "It is the judgment of this court that you are hereby tried and convicted of illegally and unlawfully committing certain grave offenses against the peace and dignity of the State of Texas, particularly in my bailiwick," was a typical Bean ruling. "I fine you two dollars; then get the hell out of here and never show yourself in this court again. That's my rulin'." One of Bean's most outrageous rulings occurred when an Irishman was accused of killing a Chinese worker. Friends of the accused threatened to destroy the Jersey Lilly if he was found guilty. Court in session, Bean browsed through his law book, turning page after page, searching for another legal precedent. Finally, rapping his pistol on the bar, he proclaimed, "Gentlemen, I find the law very explicit on murdering your fellow man, but there's nothing here about killing a Chinaman. Case dismissed." In legend, Judge Roy Bean is a merciless dispenser of justice, often called "The Hangin' Judge." But that title goes to Isaac Parker of Fort Smith, Arkansas, who sentenced 172 men to hang and actually strung up 88 of them. In his book "Judge Roy Bean Country," Jack Skiles says that although Bean threatened to hang hundreds, "there's no evidence to suggest that Judge Roy Bean ever hung anybody." One or two were sentenced and taken to th
| Status: For Sale |
Reference#: bluhilrancom |
| Condition:
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Year:
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