Joshua H. Bean was an American political figure.

Joshua Bean was born c. 1818 in Mason County, Kentucky

Mason County, Kentucky

Mason County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2000, the population was 16,800. Its county seat is Maysville. The county is named for George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, known as the "Father of the Bill of Rights"...

 to Phantly Roy Bean (November 21, 1804 – June 13, 1844) and his wife Anna Gore. His paternal grandparents were Benjamin Bean and his wife Fernetta Johnston, daughter of Archibald Johnston. Both grandparents were born in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. Bean's brother would later be known as Judge Roy Bean

Roy Bean

Phantly Roy Bean, Jr. was an eccentric U.S. saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas, who called himself "The Law West of the Pecos". According to legend, Judge Roy Bean held court in his saloon along the Rio Grande in a desolate stretch of the Chihuahuan Desert of...

.

Joshua Bean served with Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...

 in the Mexican-American War and came to California in 1849 and San Diego in 1850, where he was a trader and saloon owner.
Bean was appointed Major General of the State Militia and served to crush the Antonio Garra revolt in 1851. Later he had a small role in preventing the massacre of John Edward Irvine near Redlands, California

Redlands, California

Redlands is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 68,747, up from 63,591 at the 2000 census. The city is located east of downtown San Bernardino.- History :...

.

San Diego was incorporated by the California State Legislature

California State Legislature

The California State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of California. It is a bicameral body consisting of the lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members, and the upper house, the California State Senate, with 40 members...

 in 1850. Bean, the last alcalde

Alcalde

Alcalde , or Alcalde ordinario, is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An alcalde was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian cabildo and judge of first instance of a town...

 of San Diego, was elected mayor in the first election under the charter on June 16. Bean was the first U.S. mayor of San Diego and served from 1850 until 1851. While mayor, he illegally "sold" City Hall and city pueblo lands to himself and his drinking buddy Cave Couts (the City Hall was recovered).

In 1851 he moved to Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, where he kept a saloon, and store, in Mission San Gabriel, called the Headquarters.
He was ambushed and killed, just outside Mission San Gabriel, in 1852 during an argument over a woman.