Water Rails & Oil - Historic Mid & South Jefferson County

❖
Above: The back, or business side, of
the Kansas City Southern Railway
Station fills the foreground of this
aerial photograph that includes
Procter Street and downtown
Port Arthur.
Bottom, left: This view of Procter
Street, taken in the early 1960s from
Beaumont Avenue looking west, shows
the city’s center of commerce at about
the time the James Commission ended
Port Arthur’s long run as a “wide
open” seaport city.
Bottom, right: The Union Saloon, 212
Procter Street, shown during 1906,
was another of the local businesses
that entertained visiting seafarers and
off-work employees of the growing oil
refinery industry.
the sea with Stilwell’s rails. The canal was
completed in 1897 and Port Arthur loaded ships
to the extent of 87,632 tons.
In his lifetime, Stilwell founded more than 40
cities and towns, built more than 2,000 miles of
new, main-line rails and increased the wealth of
the Southwest at the turn of the century by
more than $1 billion.
Where Stilwell left off, John W. “Bet-amillion”
Gates began.
Gates’ interest in Port Arthur started in 1899,
when Stilwell needed capital to carry out his
plans for the ship canal. From that point on,
Gates was involved in nearly every project in the
city, including the successful fight of getting
Congress to recognize the city as a port of entry.
He also had his hand in turning the tiny Texas
company into the corporate giant Texaco.
Historical accounts say that Gates and
Stilwell were good friends until the gambler
outsmarted the city’s founder and got Stilwell’s
part of the railroad. Stilwell left the city and
never returned.
After the Spindletop oil well, located
between Port Arthur and Beaumont, blew in on
January 10, 1901, Gates formed the Texas
Company, in which he owned forty-six percent
of the stock. Gates urged construction of
pipelines and a refinery and furnished $500,000
for the purpose. In addition to forming the
Texas Company, he constructed new docks;
built the First National Bank in Port Arthur; the
Port Arthur Light, Power, and Ice Company;
and the Plaza Hotel. He also contributed
$60,000 to build Port Arthur Business College,
which today is Lamar State College–Port Arthur.
Some say Port Arthur bloomed, while others
say it boomed. But during the first half of the
twentieth century, Port Arthur grew into a major
international port city that welcomed sailors
from everywhere and provided them with the
“worldly” bounty that seafarers desired when
they dock on dry land.
With busy ports in Beaumont and Port
Arthur, both cities were “wide open,” as local
and county elected officials and law
enforcement agencies turned their backs to
open gambling, prostitution and illegal liquor
sales. They were not blind, however, to the
envelopes of cash that found a way into their
pockets and bank accounts.
While organized crime syndicates from the
Northeast came to control New Orleans and
Galveston, Jefferson County corruption remained
a “home grown” endeavor, repelling any efforts of
outside encroachment on the locally owned and
operated parlors of pleasure and vice.
The “live and let live” attitude in the town
came to a halt, however, when the State House
of Representatives General Investigative
Committee came to the county in January 1960
to clean up “good ‘ol boy” organized lawlessness
in Port Arthur and Beaumont.
The investigation was tagged the James
Commission because it was spearheaded by
thirty-one-year-old State Representative Tom
James from Dallas. The nearby Gulf Coast city of
Galveston had been cleaned up the year before.
The commission’s hearings were broadcast live
by radio and television, with almost every ear
and eye glued to sets that offered more
entertainment than any dozen soap operas.
56 ✦ WATER, RAILS & OIL