Beaumont

Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas

Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas

View of Downtown Beaumont, the seat of Jefferson County, Texas. Photograph by Regrothenberger.
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Promotion: Nearby Map of Jefferson County

Beaumont, the county seat of Jefferson County, is in the northeast part of the county, at 30°05' north latitude, and 94°06' west longitude, on the west bank of the Neches River and Interstate Highway 10, eighty-five miles east of Houston and twenty-five air miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. With nearby Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the Gulf Coast. Beaumont developed around the farm of Noah and Nancy Tevis, who settled on the Neches in 1824. The small community that grew up around the farm was known as Tevis Bluff or Neches River Settlement. Together with the nearby community of Santa Anna, it became the townsite for Beaumont when, in 1835, Henry Millard and partners Joseph Pulsifer and Thomas B. Huling began planning a town on land purchased from the Tevises. The most credible account of how the town was named is that Millard gave it his wife's maiden name, Beaumont. At Millard's urging, the First Congress of the Republic of Texas made Beaumont the seat of the newly formed Jefferson County and granted it a charter in 1838. Under a second charter municipal government was organized in 1840, but it was soon abandoned. Another attempt at municipal government in 1860 was short-lived. Continuous municipal government dates from incorporation under a general statute in 1881. Beaumont was a small center for cattle raisers and farmers in its early years, and, with an active riverport by the late 1800s, it became an important lumber and rice-milling town. The Beaumont Rice Mill, founded in 1892, was the first commercial rice mill in Texas. Beaumont's lumber boom, which reached its peak in the late 1800s, was due in large part to the rebuilding and expansion of the railroads after the Civil War. By the early 1900s the city was served by the Southern Pacific, Kansas City Southern, Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, and Missouri Pacific railroad systems. The population grew from 3,296 in 1890 to 9,427 in 1900.

The Spindletop oil gusher of 1901 produced a boom that left Beaumont with a doubled population (20,640 in 1910), great wealth, and a petroleum-based economy that expanded as refineries and pipelines were built and new fields discovered nearby (see SPINDLETOP OILFIELD). Three major oil companies—the Texas Company (later Texaco), Gulf Oil Corporation, and Humble (later Exxon)—were formed in Beaumont during the first year of the boom. The Magnolia Refinery (see MOBIL OIL COMPANY) became the city's largest employer; by 1980 it was Mobil's largest manufacturing plant. Beaumont became a major seaport (variously second or third in tonnage in Texas in the 1970s) after the Neches was channelized to Port Arthur in 1908. By 1916 the channel was deepened, a turning basin dredged, and a shipyard constructed. The Gulf States Utilities Company, which serves southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, made its headquarters in Beaumont. Discovery of a new oilfield at Spindletop in 1925 brought another burst of growth. The population of Beaumont was 40,422 in 1920 and 57,732 in 1930. This era also had its darker side: in the 1920s the Ku Klux Klan gained strength in Beaumont, and from 1922 to 1924 it controlled local politics. By the end of the 1920s, however, it had lost much of its membership and consequently its power. Though stagnant through the Great Depression, Beaumont's economy prospered during World War II with shipbuilding and oil refining. With the new boom came overcrowding, which may have contributed to the Beaumont race riot of 1943, in which interracial violence led to the declaration of martial law and the virtual shut-down of the city in June.

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Paul E. Isaac | © TSHA

Handbook of Texas Logo

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.

Belongs to

Beaumont is part of or belongs to the following places:

Currently Exists

Yes

Place type

Beaumont is classified as a Town

Associated Names

  • [-Neches]
  • (Neches River Settlement)
  • (Tevis Bluff)

Location

Latitude: 30.08439430
Longitude: -94.14408200

Has Post Office

Yes

Is Incorporated

Yes

Population Count, 2021 View more »

112,556

Place Type Population (Year/Source) Currently Exists
College or University Yes
College or University Yes

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