With everything bigger and better in Texas, it’s no surprise that Burton houses the oldest cotton gin in the world in its city limits. The ground starts shaking, your heart starts pounding, and out pops a bale of cotton every year at the Cotton Gin Festival. A celebration that brings in thousands, you won’t want to miss this piece of Texas heritage on The Texas Bucket List!
The Texas Bucket List – Texas! The Outdoor Musical
We like to do everything bigger here in Texas, and that’s no exception when it comes to our musical plays! Set in the vast and glorious Palo Duro Canyon — the second-largest canyon in the United States — the TEXAS outdoor musical will blow you away with their showcase of Texas history and tradition. This play will make you feel proud to live in the one and only Lone Star State, making it a must-see on The Texas Bucket List!
The Texas Bucket List – Golden Light Cafe
If you want to get your kicks on Route 66, you’ll stop at an original fixture on the Main Street of America — the Golden Light Cafe in Amarillo. A place that hasn’t changed much since its opening in 1946, their Waller Burger is a hot, cheesy jalapeno burger that will give you one heck of a kick! Whether you’re looking for a tasty meal or just want to visit a historic piece of the old Mother Road, the Golden Light Cafe is well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List!
The Texas Bucket List – South Padre Island Sandcastle
Sun, smiles, and sandcastles – staples at South Padre Island’s “Biggest Ever” Sandcastle! Sculptor Andy Hancock is just doing what he loves bringing cheer to the children and tourists of South Padre. Every inch of the towering castles is excruciatingly detailed and designed by hand. If you’re headed to the beach this spring or summer, be sure to stop and stand in awe of the permanent castles that stand guard over the sandy shores! Well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List!
The Texas Bucket List – Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle Release
During the peak of nesting season, sea turtle hatchlings propel their way across the sand to make their way into the deep blue sea. Down on the South Padre National Seashore, you can view this journey that begins their lives at an annual Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle release. The plucky spirit and — we admit it — cuteness of these baby sea turtles makes this well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List!
The Texas Bucket List – Texas Ranch Roundup
Get ready for a rootin’ tootin’ time at the Texas Ranch Roundup in Wichita Falls! Bringing in cowboys from all of the local ranches, it’s much more than your regular rodeo out on the range. With art, furniture, and other Texas-style crafts, the Texas Ranch Roundup is well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List!
The Texas Bucket List – Mel’s Country Cafe
We master a monster of a burger at Mel’s Country Cafe in Tomball! If you can conquer the Mega Mel Burger — stacked with five beef patties and a whole pound of bacon — you’ll earn a Mel’s Cafe t-shirt and your name on their online list of Mega Mel survivors! A country place with country folks and good ole’ country eats, Mel’s has an atmosphere that can’t be beat. Well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List!
The Texas Bucket List – Selena Museum and Monument
Over 20 years after her death, Selena’s music and memory are as strong as ever in the Lone Star State. At the Selena Museum and Monument in Corpus Christi, we speak to Abraham Quintanilla, Selena’s father, about the legacy she left behind and the impact her life made on young girls then and now. For a chance to learn more about the Queen of Tejano Music, the Selena Museum and Monument is well worth a stop on The Texas Bucket List.
The Texas Bucket List – Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center
LANGTRY, Texas – Down in Southwest Texas along the border of Mexico is a majestic landscape leading the way to the west, and once you cross the Pecos River, you’ll find yourself in a notorious section of our state.
This is where the West gets wild and the story of the infamous Judge Roy Bean, a lawman who also happened to be a saloon owner, still resonates off the rocks of Langtry.
“Well, Langtry’s kind of special. It has a very interesting history. We have almost as many historical markers as we have population,” said Jack Skiles, retired manager of the Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center.
Skiles is another legend of Langtry whose grandfather came to this part of the Lone Star State in 1905.
“[I remember] growing up as a kid hearing about Judge Roy Bean but, most of what the local people said was rather derogatory. Often referred to him as that old scoundrel, that old scalawag, or that old reprobate. I didn’t even know what reprobate meant until I started writing about it and had to look it up in the dictionary,” said Skiles.
Skiles left Langtry to pursue his career as a school superintendent, but in the late ‘60s he heard TxDOT was looking to build the Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center, so he did what any proud native would do – he checked in to see what was happening to his hometown.
“I was at a superintendents meeting in Austin one day and right across the street from us was a highway department office. So I went over there to find out what was going on and what they were planning and by George, before it was over with, they offered me a job to come back home and operate this Judge Roy Bean Visitors Center,” Skiles said.
In 1968 he opened the doors to the new center to help tell a story he knew by heart – heck, he wrote the book on it – Judge Roy Bean Country.
“I interviewed those that were still living, oh, I believe it was in about in 1960. I wanted to get their story straight about Judge Roy Bean,” said Skiles. “There’d been so many magazine articles, a couple of books, and other things written about Judge Roy Bean that were not true. So, I was determined that I wanted to find out the truth about Judge Roy Bean.”
It all started when Roy Bean decided to build a saloon in a rowdy railroad town that was booming with workers from every part of the world.
“That had about 7000 workers and half of those were Chinese. Then there was about 3500 of Americans and Italians and Germans and Mexicans and Irishmen and, of course, most all that bunch likes their whiskey, so Roy Bean set up a saloon, that Vinegaroon,” Skiles said.
As the railroad moved west, so did the town, eventually landing in Langtry. By this time the amount of arrests for disorderly conduct – whether it be fights or drunkenness – was getting out of control and the Texas Rangers got tired of taking the charged all the way to Fort Stockton. So, they appointed one Roy Bean as Justice of the Peace to help maintain order and make criminal cases a bit easier to handle.
“There was a federal judge in El Paso – T.A. Falvey was his name. And he was quoted as saying that Judge Roy Bean was the right man at the right place at the right time. So, he did the job that needed to be done here,” said Skiles.
Of course, this Justice of the Peace just so happened to own a saloon, which was his courtroom and notary. Known as The Jersey Lilly in honor of English actress Lilly Langtry for whom Judge Bean had quite the affinity, his barcourt notary became a Texas hall of tall tales.
During his time as a Judge, Bean only sentence two men to hang, a popular misconception considering some called him the hanging judge. Clearing up some misnomers about Bean’s law enforcement is something Skiles has been working to change. But, this by no means suggests that Bean was a good guy.
“I interviewed several of the people who had known the old judge and I always remember what one person, Mrs. Beulah Birdwell Farley, told me,” Skiles said. “I asked Beulah, I said, ‘Well, what did you think about Judge Roy Bean?’ She said, quote, ‘He might have been a murderer and a robber and a thief but he was good at heart.’”
While Bean did what he had to in order to keep the peace in town, the story that put his name in the marquee all started thanks to a world heavyweight prizefight that couldn’t find a venue anywhere in the United States. Being so close to the border, Judge Bean invited the promoters to have the fight down south – and out of reach of U.S. officials.
“Judge Roy Bean’s prizefight held in 1896 was right down there where we see the water of the Rio Grande. At that time that was a big gravel bar and wide open space, and they erected a little footbridge upstream a little ways. Went across, walked down to the fight. Of course, many of people that watched the fight did not pay anything because all they had to do is go down there and sit on top of the bluff,” said Skiles.”
The Texas Rangers weren’t too thrilled to see Bean find a loophole around the professional fight. But, if you can’t stop it, you might as well enjoy it.
“That’s what Roy Bean told the Rangers when they arrived to stop the fight. He said come on down, you can’t do a damn thing about it, so come on down and watch,” Skiles said.
The fight only lasted two minutes as Bob Fitzsimmons defeated Peter Maher on Feb. 21, 1896, to take the world title, but those two minutes sealed Roy Bean’s place in the history books.
“Those eastern reporters really ate that up, you know,” Skiles said. “He was really a tough old western character, so that’s where legends about Judge Roy Bean really got started, I think.”
Independent, all-knowing, stubborn, and fair as long as you were on his good side, it’s no wonder Texans can resonate with his wild spirit. So, if you want to get an idea of what life was like back in the old West, just pull into Langtry and learn about Judge Roy Bean’s method of Texas Justice.
“It’s a part of history that needs to be preserved, and they’re doing a good job preserving it,” said Skiles.
This Week on The Texas Bucket List – A Delightful Deli, a Burger on the Border, and a Meteor Crater!
This week, we take things to the extremes of the boundaries of Texas at Fossati’s in Victoria getting close the coast, Border Burger in Eagle Pass that’s – you guessed it – right on the border, and the Odessa Meteor Crater pounding out a Pleistocene impact out in west Texas.
You can’t drive through Victoria without having to stop and take a look (and grab a bite!) at the oldest delicatessen in Texas! Fossati’s serves up a delectable display of deli delights that we were more than happy to get our hands on! With well over 100 years of making meatballs and other Italian fare, Fossati’s is well worth the stop!
Next up, the Jalapeno Burger at Border Burger in Eagle Pass is so hot and delicious, it’ll bring tears to your eyes – or maybe that’s just the jalapeno! Top that off with a crispy, crunchy taco, and you’ll be salivating for a taste that’s just as good as what you’d get south of the border.
Kirk House from Abilene strums out the chords for a solo rendition of his song “Love Doesn’t Work that Way.”
Our final stop is at the Odessa Meteor Crater, the third largest meteor crater in the United States. Even though it’s been thousands of years since that ball of fire banged into the Permian Basin, the sands of time have quite literally been unforgiving to the crater, filling the hole back up with sand, sediment, and soil. Make your own way through the weathered rocks of the impact site!
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