Day 29 - Sanderson, TX to Langtry, TX (“Only law west of the Pecos”)

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My host last night told me, with evident pride, that Sanderson has been dubbed, “the town that was too mean for Bean“. Bean is Judge Roy Bean. en.m.wikipedia.org


Bean lived in Sanderson for a short time before moving to Langtry. According to my host Bean had a very acrimonious relationship with the townspeople of Sanderson, who surreptitiously dumped the whiskey out of his whisky bottles and substituted turpentine. This undoubtedly contributed to Bean’s decision to move to Langtry.

I am camping tonight in Langtry, which today is a town in name and history only. There is a small museum here dedicated to Roy Bean and that is about it. I am wild camping here, literally on the banks of the Rio Grande overlooking Mexico.

To say this is a remote region would be an understatement. It was originally settled (sparsely)as a cattle ranching area, and ranchers managed to persuade the railroads to put in a railroad to transport cattle to slaughter houses. Windmills supplied the power to pump water from very deep wells on the ranches. Today there are very few cattle raised on the massive ranches in this area. 

Many of those ranches today contain hunting lodges where hunters can stay while they hunt, for a hefty fee, deer and imported exotic animals. The land is too vast and rugged for horses, so hunters usually take ATVs out to hunting blinds in the vast wilderness.

Comments

  1. EllenNovember 9, 2021 at 8:40 AM

    oh my goodness, the story of Roy Bean is alternating fascinating/terrifying!

    ReplyDelete

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