to go back to the visitor center. The descent into the canyon is over 800 feet, down uneven stone stairs. Then you have to ascend to the two shelters. There are places to rest along the way. Take water, and dress in layers.
Another twenty-five miles to the West is the tiny town of Langtry. Judge Roy Bean called this town home. He was appointed the Justice of the Peace with the help of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which ran from New Orleans to San Francisco. He dispensed justice quickly according to the Law West of the Pecos. He ran a saloon called the Jersey Lilly, named after the British actress Lillie Langtry. He had a crush on her picture and wrote many letters inviting her to visit. He even told her that he named the town for her. When she arrived for the visit in 1904, Judge Bean had been dead for four months and was buried in Del Rio, Texas.
When a prisoner was brought in, Judge Bean would close the saloon, choose a jury from his customers and hold court, with 1879 Revised Statutes of Texas and a pistol on the desk. He assumed the reputation of “The Hanging Judge”. Records, however, show that he never hanged anyone. For a cattle rustler or horse thief, the punishment was expulsion from Langtry and forfeiture of his horse, gun and all other assets. If the person ever returned, he would then be hanged. Few survived going across this wasteland without horse and firearms.
At the modern visitor center is a fifteen-minute movie depicting the life and times of Judge Roy Bean. The Jersey Lilly saloon and billiard parlor, and Roy Bean’s Opera House Town Hall and Seat of Justice (his home) where he wanted Lillie Langtry to perform for him. A Cactus Garden Interpretive Trail