BEAUMONT

city, seat (1838) of Jefferson county, southeastern Texas, U.S., at the head of navigation on the Neches River (an arm of the Sabine-Neches Waterway), 85 miles (137 km) east-northeast of Houston. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the "Golden Triangle" petrochemical and industrial complex. In 1825 Noah Tevis founded the settlement of Tevis Bluff; in 1835 he sold 50 acres (20 hectares) of land for a townsite to Henry Millard, who supposedly named it for his brother-in-law, Jefferson Beaumont. Lumbering, rice cultivation, and shipping were early activities, and in the 1890s five railroads came through the site. Spindletop, the first major oil field in Texas, was discovered nearby when the Lucas Well blew in 1901, and a typical boom city sprang up. After the completion of a deep-river channel (1916) Beaumont became a key port of the Texas petrochemical industry with large oil refineries and shipbuilding, grain storage, and rice-processing facilities. Salt and sulfur domes are also worked in the area. Lamar University (1923) is in the city. The Lucas Gusher Monument and the reconstructed Gladys City-Spindletop Boomtown commemorate the oil strike. Inc. town, 1838; city, 1881. Pop. (1990) city, 114,323; Beaumont-Port Arthur MSA, 361,226.