1866, he married eighteen-year-old Virginia Chavez. Within a year after being married, he was arrested for aggravated assault and threatening his wife's life. Despite the tumultuous marriage, they had four children together: Roy Jr., Laura, Zulema and Sam. The family lived in what was described as "a poverty-stricken Mexican slum area called Beanville". Beanville would have been centered near the present-day corner of South Flores Street and Glenn Avenue not far from Burbank High School. By the late 1870s Bean was operating a saloon in Beanville and had heard that many construction camps were opening as several railroad companies were working to extend the railroads west. A store owner in Beanville "was so anxious to have this unscrupulous character out of the neighborhood" that she bought all of Bean's possessions for $900 so that he could leave San Antonio. At the time, Bean and his wife were separated and he had left his children with friends as he prepared to go west. Justice of the peace With the money he received, Bean purchased a tent, some supplies to sell, and ten 55-gallon barrels of whiskey. By the spring of 1882, he had established a small saloon near the Pecos River in a tent city he named Vinegaroon. Within of the tent city were 8,000 railroad workers. The nearest court was away at Fort Stockton, and there were few means to stop illegal activity. A Texas Ranger requested that a local law jurisdiction be set up in Vinegaroon, and on August 2, 1882 Bean was appointed justice of the peace for the new Precinct 6 in Pecos County. His first case, however, was heard earlier, on 25 July 1882, when Texas Rangers brought in Joe Bell to be tried. One of his first acts as a justice of the peace was to "shoot [...] up the saloon shack of a Jewish competitor". Bean then turned his tent saloon into a part-time courtroom and began calling himself the "Only Law West of the Pecos." As a judge, Bean relied on a single law book, the 1879 edition of the Revised Statutes of Texas, and when newer law books showed up he used them as kindling. Bean did not allow hung juries or appeals. Jurors, who were chosen from his best bar customers, were expected to buy a drink during every court recess. He was also known for his unusual rulings. In one