Whitehead Memorial Museum

The Whitehead Memorial Museum is a western museum complex in downtown Del Rio, Texas. Located on two and a half landscaped acres, the museum consists of nine buildings. Its thirteen exhibits with period artifacts, many from the 19th century, express the history of Val Verde County. Encompassed within the museum grounds are a replica of "The Jersey Lilly" saloon, as well as the graves of the frontier Justice of the Peace Roy Bean and his son Sam Bean. (The original Bean saloon is at the Texas Tourist Bureau site in Langtry west of Del Rio, but numerous replicas are found throughout the United States.) In 1962 the Whiteheads, a Del Rio ranching family, purchased the former Perry Mercantile building and donated it to the city and county for a museum. The San Felipe irrigation canal flows through the back of the property occupied by the museum.