Roy Bean - Later Years

Later Years

In 1890, Bean received word that Jay Gould was planning to pass through Langtry on a special train. Bean flagged down the train with the danger signal; thinking the bridge was out, the train engineer stopped. Bean invited Gould and his daughter to visit the saloon as his guests. The Goulds visited for two hours, causing a brief panic on the New York Stock Exchange when it was reported that Gould had been killed in a train crash.

In the last part of his life, Bean met the legendary land surveyor W. D. Twichell, who platted the majority of Texas counties and based in Amarillo by 1890.

In 1896, Bean organized a world championship boxing title bout between Bob Fitzsimmons and Peter Maher on an island in the Rio Grande because boxing matches were illegal in both Texas and Mexico. The fight lasted only 1 minute 35 seconds, but the resulting sport reports spread his fame throughout the United States.

As he aged, Bean spent much of his profits to help the poor of the area, and always made sure that the schoolhouse had free firewood in winter. He died March 16, 1903, peacefully in his bed, after a bout of heavy drinking in San Antonio over the building of a new power plant. He and a son, Sam Bean (1874–1907), are interred at the Whitehead Memorial Museum in Del Rio.