Langtry, Texas
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Location of Langtry, Texas
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Langtry is a town located in Val Verde County, Texas, United States, notable as the location of Judge Roy Bean, the "law west of the Pecos". In 1990 Langtry had a population of 145.
The town was originally established in 1882 by Southern Pacific, as a grading camp named "Eagle Nest". It was later renamed for George Langtry, an engineer and foreman working on the railroad. Roy Bean soon after arrived and set up a tent saloon on railroad land.
In 1884 a post office opened, and in 1892 the town was reported to have a general store, two saloons (one of them Bean's "The Jersey Lily", named after the Jersey actress Lillie Langtry who was unrelated to George Langtry), and the railroad depot, although most of the population of 150 lived in tents.
After Bean's death in 1903 the town began to decline; in the 1920s Southern Pacific moved its facilities away from the town, and the town population had dwindled to 50, and then to 40 by the 1970s. Tourism to the Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center in Langtry continues to keep the town alive.
Langtry, Langtrey and Langtree
English Surname: habitational name from places in Devon, Oxfordshire, and Lancashire called Langtree, from Old English lang, long ‘long’, ‘tall’ + treow ‘tree’. Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4
External link
- Handbook of Texas Online entry for Langtry (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/LL/hll17.html)
- LILLIE LANGTRY 'The Jersey Lily' (http://www.jaynesjersey.com/lillielang.htm)