Beaumont, TX Summary

Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Orange form what is called “the Magic Triangle” in the southeast corner of the state, near the Louisiana border. All three cities have deep-water ports and oil refineries, and in their extensive rural surroundings, harvest rice and crawfish. This area has also been called “the Cajun Triangle” because of the great influence of Cajun culture, and “the Golden Triangle” because of the oil that brought wealth in the twentieth century.

Beaumont, with a population of 115,00, is 275 miles southeast of Dallas-Fort Worth. About a third of the population is African-American, one of the largest percentages in the state. In 1901 the oil gusher at a salt-dome hill called Spindletop just south of town became the richest oil field in the United States, leading to the formation of contemporary oil giants such as Texaco, Chevron, Mobil, and Exxon. Beaumont is the state’s fourth-largest port.

Beaumont’s 36-block Old Town features historic houses that have been turned into shops. The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum celebrates the greatest female American athlete of the first half of the twentieth century, who was from Beaumont.

The Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown re-creates the world’s first oil boomtown with typical clapboard buildings of the era, which include a photo studio, post office, saloon, livery stable, blacksmith shop, surveyor’s office, and wooden oil derricks.

Beaumont also has steamboat, fire department, and energy museums; the McFaddin-Ward restored Beaux-Arts colonial mansion; and a French historic pioneer settlement house. Bird sanctuaries owned by the Houston Audubon Society, and 500-acre Tyrell Park, which offers golf, archery, horseback riding, botanical gardens, and a cattail marsh, make for popular outings.

At the Port of Beaumont an observation deck gives a good view of the city’s shipping industry.

Beaumont can be reached by I-10, and by bus or plane.