Beaumont, Texas

Beaumont is a city and county seat of Jefferson County in U.S. state of Texas within the Beaumont?Port Arthur metropolitan area. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 113,866. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the Gulf Coast.

History

Oil was discovered at Spindletop near Beaumont on January 10, 1901. Spindletop became the first major oil field and one of the largest in American history.

Related Topics:
Oil - Spindletop - January 10 - 1901 - Oil field

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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. With the discovery of oil at Spindletop, Beaumont's population grew from 3,296 in 1890 to 9,427 in 1900.

Related Topics:
1800s - 1892 - Civil War - 1900s - Spindletop - 1900

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A race riot took place in Beaumont in June 1943, after a white woman said she had been raped by a black man. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/BB/jcb1.html

Related Topics:
Race riot - Rape

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

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