Beaumont, city in southeastern Texas and seat of Jefferson County. The city is located at the head of navigation on the Neches River ship channel, near the Gulf of Mexico. Situated in a rice-growing and timber-producing region, Beaumont is heavily industrialized, with oil wells, petroleum refineries, petrochemical plants, steel mills, and shipyards. The city's busy inland port accommodates oceangoing vessels. The area is served by Jefferson County Airport. Points of interest include Lamar University (1923); the Texas Energy Museum; Gladys City, a replica of an oil boomtown; and a museum dedicated to Babe Didrikson Zaharias, considered among the best female athletes of the 20th century. The Big Thicket National Preserve was established in Beaumont in 1974. Every April the city celebrates the Neches River Festival.
The site was settled in the 1820s by farmer Noah Tevis; other early settlers were Louisiana Acadians. In 1835 Tevis sold land for the town site to Henry Millard, who named the town for his wife, Mary Warren Beaumont. It incorporated as a town in 1838, and as a city in 1881. In the 1870s Beaumont became a lumber-milling center. In 1901 the world's first great oil gusher came in at the Lucas well in the nearby Spindletop oil field, and Beaumont became an early center of the modern petroleum industry. More than 600 oil companies originated at Spindletop. Deepening and widening of the Neches River between 1908 and 1930 contributed to Beaumont's importance as a port.
