Water Rails & Oil - Historic Mid & South Jefferson County

❖
The Port Arthur Board of Education,
Port Arthur Independent School
District in 1935. Members are, left to
right, front row: George Sims,
Superintendent, Ms. Joe Harle, A.M.
McAfee, President, Mrs. Carl
White, Calder Yates; back row: Perry
LaGrone, E. P. Baker, F. D. Austin,
and L. B. Abbey, secretary.
COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF THE GULF COAST,
PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS.
area in anticipation of work producing, refining,
or shipping petroleum.
Port Arthur and Beaumont enjoyed a visit
from the U.S. frigate Constitution, “Old
Ironsides,” early in 1932. Thousands of
residents of the county turned out to visit this
surviving artifact of the United States’ war with
England, 1812-1815, over a century earlier.
Despite such distractions, the area experienced
various ups and downs in the 1930s. For
example, the City of Port Arthur laid off
approximately fifty of 218 employees—nearly
one quarter of its labor force—and First
National Bank survived a “run” only with the
assistance of a $750,000 advance from the
Federal Reserve System delivered by airplane.
On the other hand, Radio Station KPAC, with
Port Arthur College as licensee, debuted, and
Bruno Schultz founded the Gulfport
Shipbuilding Corporation despite the national
economic depression. Interurban service to
Beaumont, operational since 1931, ceased,
mostly because of competition from
automobiles, buses, and trucks; in its nearly two
decades of service the interurban transported
9,077,472 passengers, a total of 6,624,757
miles. On the other hand, work began on a
bridge at Dryden’s Ferry across the Neches River
connecting the Port Arthur-Orange highway,
and Port Arthur’s Hunting Club—a leisure
activity demonstrating discretionary income
expenditure—began operating with members
from its namesake city, Nederland, Beaumont,
and Houston. A new community located two
miles west of Nederland and midway between
Port Arthur and Beaumont—and so named
Beauxart Gardens—was platted and soon
claimed a population of fifty families.
Port Arthur’s schools took on different roles
when Thomas Jefferson Junior High School was
changed to the town’s primary public high school,
and the old high school campus on Lakeshore
Drive became Woodrow Wilson Junior High.
Additional evidence of the impact of the
Depression could be seen in City Manager Robert
Cooper’s disclosure that taxpayers had fallen
behind in property tax payments by approximately
$500,000, which he called an “astounding figure.”
And in 1935, the first project of the New Deal
agency known as the Works Progress
Administration in Port Arthur, the construction of
a sub-county courthouse, began. The project
employed fifty-one men for three-quarters of a year.
In 1937, Port Arthur’s City Commission held
a contest to determine a slogan that would best
capture the essence of the city. Commissioners
invited the public to submit recommendations
and, out of 423 responses, selected “We Oil The
World,” the recommendation of Mrs. Hollie D.
Sudduth. The slogan represented the vocational
focus, directly or indirectly, of every citizen of
the city and much of the southern portion of the
county as well.
Improvements to Dick Dowling Park at
Sabine Pass, especially the addition of a statue of
Dowling, attracted more tourists, Port Arthur
Lines began operating a regular city bus
schedule—rides cost five cents—and airmail
service began in December 1937. But the most
significant Depression era advancement in the
area occurred on September 8, 1938, with the
opening of the Rainbow Bridge at Dryden’s
Crossing, making possible continuous
automotive transportation between south
Jefferson County and Orange. The two-lane
bridge cost $2.75 million and connected
literally hundreds of thousands of people who
commuted daily to industrial employment,
leisure activities, or family visits. Called a
“rainbow” because it rose 176 feet above the
river to allow passage of ocean vessels upriver to
Beaumont, availability of the bridge connected
the southern portion of the county to Orange,
and then on to Lake Charles and New Orleans,
Louisiana. The dedication ceremony featured
34 ✦ WATER, RAILS & OIL