Beaumont is the Jefferson County seat, on the Neches River about 80 miles east of our Clear Lake office in Houston by way of State Highway 146 and Interstate 10.
The Handbook of Texas describes it as an important shipping point, a petrochemical producer, and a hospital center, and that still frames its business community.
ExxonMobil's Beaumont refinery is one of the largest in the United States, with 612,000 barrels per calendar day of crude distillation capacity at the start of 2026, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Around it work the contractors, engineering firms, and industrial service companies that plants depend on, along with law and accounting firms, clinics, and Lamar University, a Texas State University System member founded in 1923.

