Editing Beaumont, Texas (section)

== History ==

{{See also|Timeline of Beaumont, Texas}}
In 1824 Noah and Nancy Tevis settled on the west bank of the [[Neches River]] and developed a farm. Soon after that, a small community grew up around the farm, which was named ''Tevis Bluff'' or ''Neches River Settlement''.<ref name=Beaumont_TX>{{cite web | author = Paul E. Isaac | title = Beaumont, Texas | work = The Handbook of Texas Online | url = https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hdb02 | access-date = February 19, 2011 }}</ref> In 1835 the land of Tevis, together with the nearby community of ''Santa Anna'' (in total, {{convert|50|acre|ha}}), was purchased by [[Henry Millard]] ({{circa|1796}}–1844),<ref name=Millard>{{cite web | author = Judith Linsley & Ellen Rienstra | title = Henry Millard | work = The Handbook of Texas Online | url = https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmi10 | access-date = February 20, 2011 }}</ref> Joseph Pulsifer (1805–1861),<ref name=Pulsifer>{{cite web | author = Judith Linsley & Ellen Rienstra | title = Joseph Perkins Pulsifer | work = The Handbook of Texas Online | url = https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpu04 | access-date = February 20, 2011 }}</ref> and [[Thomas Byers Huling]] (1804–1865).<ref name=Huling>{{cite web | author = Robert Wooster | title = Thomas Byers Huling | work = The Handbook of Texas Online | url = https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fhu24 | access-date = February 20, 2011 }}</ref> They began planning a town to be laid out on this land.<ref name=Beaumont_TX /> Their partnership, J.P. Pulsifer and Company, controlled the first {{convert|50|acre|m2}} upon which the town was founded.<ref name=Pulsifer /> This town was named Beaumont, after Mary Dewburleigh Barlace Warren Beaumont, the wife of Henry Millard.<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Beaumont, Texas |url=http://www.beaumontcvb.com/about-beaumont/history/ |website=Beaumont Convention & Visitor Bureau |access-date=October 12, 2018}}</ref> They added more property for a total of 200 acres.

Beaumont became a town on December 16, 1838. Beaumont's first mayor was [[Alexander Calder (Beaumont, Texas)|Alexander Calder]].<ref name="Rienstra2">{{cite book | last = Rienstra | first = Ellen Walker | author2 = Linsley, Judith Walker | title = Historic Beaumont: An Illustrated History | publisher = Historical Publishing Network | year = 2003 | page = 21 | isbn =  1-893619-28-1}}</ref> From the town's founding in 1835, business activities included real estate, transportation, and retail sales. Later, other businesses were formed, especially in railroad construction and operation, new building construction, lumber sales, and communications. The Port of Beaumont became a successful regional shipping center. Beaumont was a small center for cattle raisers and farmers in its early years. With an active riverport by the 1880s, it became an important lumber and rice-milling town. The city exported rice as a commodity crop. Beaumont's lumber boom, which reached its peak in the late 19th century, was stimulated by the rebuilding and expansion of the railroads in the state and region after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]].<ref>{{cite web |author1=Robert S. Maxwell |title=Lumber Industry |url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/drl02 |publisher=Texas State Historical Association |access-date=September 11, 2018 |date=February 21, 2012}}</ref>

The Beaumont Rice Mill, founded in 1892 by [[Joseph Eloi Broussard]], was the first commercially successful rice mill in Texas.<ref name="Handbook" /> In addition, Broussard cofounded the Beaumont Irrigation Company in 1898 to operate an irrigation system to support rice culture. The company along with four others established around the same time helped stimulate the expansion of rice cultivation from 1500 acres in 1892 to 400,000 acres in 23 counties by his death in 1956.<ref name="Handbook" /> The other companies were The Port Arthur Rice and Irrigation Company, The McFaddin-Wiess-Kyle Canal Company, the Treadaway or Neches Canal Company, and  the Taylors-Hillebrand complex.<ref>{{cite web |title=Jefferson County, Texas Its Geological, Historical and Agricultural Background Part D: Jefferson County Agriculture After 1900t |url=http://www.wtblock.com/wtblockjr/jefferso.htm |publisher=W.. T. Block |access-date=September 11, 2018}}</ref>  The holdings of those companies formed the basis for the [[Lower Neches Valley Authority]] established by the state legislature in 1933.<ref>{{cite web |title=Senate Bill 38 |url=https://lrl.texas.gov/LASDOCS/43CS1/SB38/SB38_43CS1.pdf#page=74 |publisher=Legislative Reference Library of Texas |access-date=September 11, 2018 |date=October 11, 1933}}</ref>

The rise of Beaumont's mill economy drew many new residents to the city, many of them immigrants.<ref>{{Cite web|title=ISJL - Texas Beaumont Encyclopedia|url=https://www.isjl.org/texas-beaumont-encyclopedia.html|access-date=2022-02-18|website=Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life|language=en}}</ref> By the early 20th century, the city was served by the Southern Pacific; Kansas City Southern, Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe; and Missouri Pacific railroad systems.<ref>Robert L. Schaadt, "The Business of Beaumont Prior to 1880," ''Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record'' 2006 42: 34–53</ref>

[[File:Lucas gusher.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Lucas Gusher, [[Spindletop]]]]
[[Petroleum|Oil]] was discovered at nearby [[Spindletop]] on January 10, 1901. Spindletop became the first major [[oil field]] and one of the largest in American history. With the discovery of oil at Spindletop, Beaumont's population more than tripled in two months from 9,000 in January 1901 to 30,000 in March 1901.{{citation needed|date=February 2022}}

[[Captain W. C. Tyrrell|William Casper Tyrrell]], nicknamed "Captain W.C.", was a leading businessman and oil tycoon in the city in the early 20th century, developing businesses during the [[Texas Oil Boom]]. An entrepreneur from Pennsylvania and Iowa, he arrived after the gusher at [[Spindletop]], and invested in development of a commercial port in the city, and an irrigation system to support the local rice industry, as well as residential and retail development of suburban property. He was also a philanthropist. He purchased and donated First Baptist Church, whose congregation had moved to a new facility, to use as the city's first public library, now known as the [[Tyrrell Historical Library]].<ref>Carolyn Davis Smith, "Captain William Casper Tyrrell: Philanthropist Extraordinaire and the Legacy of Philanthropy in Beaumont," ''Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record'' 2002 38: 5–18</ref>

When the city became a major center for defense shipbuilding during [[World War II]], tens of thousands of rural Texans migrated there for the new high-paying jobs. The Roosevelt administration ordered the defense industry to be integrated, and many Southern white males were working closely with black males for the first time. Housing was scarce in the crowded city, and racial tensions increased. In June 1943 after workers at the [[Pennsylvania Shipyards|Pennsylvania shipyards]] in Beaumont learned that a white woman had accused a black man of raping her, nearly 2,000 went to the jail where a suspect was being held, attracting more men along the way and reaching a total of 4,000.<ref>{{cite web | author = James S. Olson | title = Beaumont riot of 1943 | work = The Handbook of Texas Online | url = https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jcb01 | access-date = July 28, 2015 }}</ref> Ultimately the white mob rioted for three days, destroying major black neighborhoods and killing five persons. No one was prosecuted for the deaths. The riot in [[Beaumont Race Riot of 1943|Beaumont]] was one of several in 1943 which centered in the defense industry, including [[Zoot Suit Riots|Los Angeles]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots|url=http://www.laalmanac.com/history/hi07t.htm|publisher=Los Angeles Almanac|access-date=January 2, 2015}}</ref> [[Detroit Race Riot (1943)|Detroit]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Hatred on the Home Front: The Race Riots During WWII|url=http://life.time.com/history/detroit-race-riots-1943-photos-from-a-city-in-turmoil-during-wwii/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130607202717/http://life.time.com/history/detroit-race-riots-1943-photos-from-a-city-in-turmoil-during-wwii/|url-status=dead|archive-date=June 7, 2013|publisher=Time Inc.|access-date=January 2, 2015}}</ref> and [[Mobile, Alabama]] as well as other cities across the country.<ref>{{cite web|title=Detroit Race Riots 1943|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/eleanor-riots/|publisher=WGBH Educational Foundation|access-date=September 22, 2015|quote=In many cities the demands of wartime were manifesting themselves in outbursts of intolerance. Race riots had already erupted in Los Angeles, as well as Mobile, Alabama, and Beaumont, Texas.|archive-date=March 1, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301013611/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/eleanor-riots/|url-status=dead}}</ref> The wartime social disruption was similar to [[List of ethnic riots#War and interwar period: 1914–1945|war time riots]] which had occurred in other parts of the country during and following [[World War I]].

During the war years, airmen cadets from the Royal Air Force, flying from their training base at Terrell, Texas, routinely flew to Beaumont on training flights. The community served as a stand-in for the British for Paris, France, which was the same distance from London, England as Beaumont is from Terrell.<ref>[[AT6 Monument]]</ref>

In the postwar years, Beaumont's port continued in importance. As was typical with other cities, post-war highway construction led to the development of new suburbs and dispersal of the population in search of new housing. Recently, there has been some renewal in Downtown Beaumont and in other areas of the city.

In 1996, the Jefferson County courts, located in Beaumont, became the first court in the nation to implement electronic filing and service of court documents. This eliminated the need for law firms to print and mail reams of documents.

In 2005 and 2008, Beaumont and surrounding areas suffered extensive damage from [[Hurricane Rita]] and [[Hurricane Ike]], respectively.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Levin|first=Matt|date=2015-09-23|title=Despite 'forgotten' status, Hurricane Rita ravaged southeast Texas|url=https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Despite-forgotten-status-Hurricane-Rita-6525187.php|access-date=2022-02-18|website=Chron|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=2018-09-12|title=10 years later: Remembering Hurricane Ike|url=https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/10-years-later-Remembering-Hurricane-Ike-13223296.php|access-date=2022-02-18|website=Beaumont Enterprise|language=en-US}}</ref> Mandatory evacuations were issued in advance of both storms.

In August 2017, Beaumont and surrounding areas experienced severe flooding as a result of [[Hurricane Harvey]].<ref>{{Cite web|last=Taylor|first=Alan|title=A Look Back at Hurricane Harvey: One Year Since Landfall - The Atlantic|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/08/a-look-back-at-hurricane-harvey-one-year-since-landfall/568594/|access-date=2022-02-18|website=www.theatlantic.com|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Residents "fighting for their lives" after record Texas rainfall|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hurricane-harvey/flash-floods-hit-beaumont-port-arthur-texas-harvey-makes-landfall-n797336|access-date=2022-02-18|website=NBC News|date=August 31, 2017 |language=en}}</ref> Due to the flooding, Baptist Hospital of Southeast Texas evacuated all of its highest level of acuity patients with the help of National Guard helicopters.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Parker|first=Mike|title=Hurricane Harvey sends Beaumont patient to Round Rock|url=https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2017/09/08/hurricane-harvey-sends-beaumont-patient-to-round-rock/10384262007/|access-date=2022-02-18|website=Austin American-Statesman|language=en-US}}</ref> In addition, many Beaumont residents had to be rescued by both boats and helicopters as a result of the floodwaters. {{as of|2019|March}}, many residents in the area are still attempting to recover from the hurricane as the city received emergency assistance.<ref>{{Cite web|date= July 30, 2019|title=Beaumont to receive $9M federal grant for Harvey recovery through Robert T. Stafford Act|url=https://www.12newsnow.com/article/weather/hurricane/harvey/beaumont-to-receive-9m-federal-grant-for-harvey-recovery-through-robert-t-stafford-act/502-e2055aac-bc74-43ea-acc7-1014992b8427|access-date=2022-02-18|website=12newsnow.com|language=en-US}}</ref>