Whitehead Memorial Museum

The Whitehead Memorial Museum is a western museum complex in downtown Del Rio in southwestern Texas. Located on two and a half landscaped acres, the museum consists of at least nine buildings. Its exhibits with period artifacts, many from the 19th century, express the history of Val Verde County.​ The Whitehead is the only full-time museum in Val Verde County.

In 1962, the Whiteheads, a Del Rio ranching family, purchased the former Perry Mercantile building and donated it to the city and county for the establishment of a museum. The San Felipe irrigation canal flows through the back of the property occupied by the museum.^[1]

Located at 1308 South Main Street, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and on Sundays from 1-5 p.m.^[2]​

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 Phantly Roy Bean, Jr., and his son Sam Bean (1874-1907).^[1] The original Bean saloon is at the Texas Tourist Bureau site in rural Langtry west of Del Rio, but numerous replicas are found throughout the United States.^[3]

Bean is the subject of the Judge Roy Bean, a syndicated television series with Edgar Buchanan (1903-1979) that aired from 1955 to 1956.^[4] Pictures of the grave markers of Roy and Sam Bean can be accessed through FindAGrave.com.^[5]​ ​

Among the exhibits is the Hal Patton Office (1905), dedicated to Seminole United States Army scouts stationed in Del Rio. The War Room contains exhibits about the Confederate States of America, World War I, World War II, and Del Rio's Laughlin Air Force Base.^[1]​ ​ La Zappa Chapel is encouraged for prayer and meditation and is used for special occasions. It also contains the museum gift shop. "Cadena Nativity" is a permanent Christmas cultural and folk-art exhibit in a separate building.^[1]​

A Southern Pacific Railroad caboose is open at the museum.^[1]​ Another exhibit includes the figure of the notable English actress Lillie Langtry (1853-1929) standing on the deck of a train. While visiting the United States, she came to Langtry, Texas, after Judge Bean’s death.^[1]​

A "Border Radio" exhibit relates to Del Rio's history of broadcasting and includethe Mexican stations XERA and XERF broadcast from Ciudad Acuña. With 500,000-watt signals, the stations could be heard at night as far away as Canada. Robert Weston Smith, known as Wolfman Jack (1938-1995), legendary deejay, broadcast from XERF in the 1960s with a Del Rio address to sell goods.^[6]​

Other popular exhibits include:​

• The office of Dr. Simon Rodriguez, who in 1925 became the first Hispanic physician in Del Rio. Among other achievements, he delivered some three thousand babies during his medical career.​
• The Perry House (1870) contained the largest mercantile store between San Antonio and El Paso, on the first floor. Family living quarters were above.
• A building called "The Barn" has a comprehensive exhibit of American Indians.^[1]​
• A restored cabin shows furnished living and dining quarters of frontier settlers.^[7]​
  

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​*Whitehead Memorial Museum - official site​ ​ ​​​​​