Water Rails & Oil - Historic Mid & South Jefferson County

CHAPTER II
“Into the Jefferson County scene in 1895 came Arthur Edward Stilwell, erstwhile successful insurance
salesman, head of a transportation system and trust company, and believer in dreams, hunches, and the
supernatural creatures that he called ‘Brownies’ to build what he later described as ‘the only city ever
located and built under directions from the spirit world….”
This is how writers for the Works Projects Administration introduced Arthur Stilwell, founder and
namesake of Port Arthur, Jefferson County’s second largest city and industrial and business anchor of
the southern portion of the county.
Stilwell came from a family highly placed in the post-Civil War, entrepreneurial era. One
grandfather had helped construct the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railroad and helped found
Western Union, and his father became a successful businessman in Rochester, New York. Despite his
background, Stilwell’s success in business—at least until he lost control of the Kansas City, Pittsburg,
& Gulf Railroad, and with it his place as patron of Port Arthur—came largely from his own ingenuity
and effort; however, he attributed his achievements as much to the “Brownies.” Stilwell and others may
well have credited supernatural guidance with business success, as others have prayed to a different
deity, but likely hard work, experience, and luck enhanced his intuition and made success possible.
Stilwell’s formal education ended, by his estimation, at approximately the fourth-grade level due
to childhood illness. He often traveled to New York City with his father on business trips, which
brought him into his grandfather’s world, where he made the acquaintance of such men as George
Pullman, manufacturer of railroad rolling stock, who later played a role in Stilwell’s achievements in
establishing railroad lines.
Stilwell left home at the age of sixteen to work in the billiard room of the Southern Hotel, then
returned to New York City to a job with a novelty distributor. Stilwell next purchased a printing
business and learned all phases of that business from layout to sales to production. Perhaps his
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Port Arthur’s Procter Street looking
eastward from about the 300 block,
April 24, 1897. Joseph Bash’s grocery
and hardware store is the first twostory
building on the right. The young
town backed up to Lake Sabine and
Bash stated that if he didn’t make at
least fifty cents before noon he would
close the store and pick up either a
fishing pole or a gun and walk out
and get fish or game for his family’s
evening meal.
COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF THE GULF COAST,
PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS.
Chapter II ✦ 13