Discover 15 hidden attractions, cool sights, and unusual things to do in Beaumont (United States). Don't miss out on these must-see attractions: Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum, McFaddin-Ward House Museum, and Fire Museum of Texas. Also, be sure to include Julie Rogers Theater in your itinerary.
Below, you can find the list of the most amazing places you should visit in Beaumont (Texas).
Table of Contents
Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum
The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum & Visitor Center is a museum dedicated to Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias that is located in Beaumont, Texas. Fronting on Interstate 10, it is freely open to the public Monday through Saturday from 9 am to 5 pm. The museum consists largely of trophies and awards that Zaharias accumulated during her career, as well as memorabilia, newspaper clippings, and photographs. The museum also functions as a visitor center for Beaumont. Money raised by the museum helps fund scholarships for female students at Lamar University.
Described by George E. McLeod as "a big trophy case", the museum prominently features a silver cup trophy that Zaharias won at a meet in Chicago in 1932, as well as her three medals from the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The museum also showcases a set of her golf clubs. More of her trophies are on display at the Babe Zaharias Golf Course's clubhouse in Tampa, Florida.
Born in Port Arthur in 1911, Zaharias was perhaps the world's premier female athlete from the 1930s to the 1950s; she won two gold medals and a silver medal at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and excelled in basketball, golf, and track and field. In basketball, she was a three-time All-American. She also competed in sports as diverse as billiards, bowling, diving, and roller skating.
In 1950, Zaharias helped to found the Ladies Professional Golf Association along with her husband, the wrestler George Zaharias. The couple also founded the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Foundation, which continues to help fund cancer research and support women's athletics as well as the museum. In 1956, Babe Didrikson Zaharias died suddenly of colon cancer at the age of 45; she was buried in Beaumont, which honors her with an annual golf tournament in addition to the museum. The Beaumont Convention & Visitors Bureau has described her as both the "world’s greatest female athlete" and as the region's "hometown legend".[1]
Address: 1750 Interstate 10 E, 77703 Beaumont
McFaddin-Ward House Museum
Building in Beaumont, Texas. The McFaddin–Ward House is a historic home in Beaumont, Texas, United States built in 1905 1906 in the Beaux-Arts Colonial Revival style. The 12,800-square-foot house and furnishings reflect the lifestyle of the prominent family who lived in the house for seventy-five years. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
Di Vernon Averill commissioned architect Henry Conrad Mauer to build the house, which was sold the next year to Di's brother, William P.H. McFaddin. McFaddin and his wife Ida Caldwell McFaddin, from Huntington, West Virginia, moved into the house in 1907 with their three children: Mamie, age 11, Perry Jr. age 9, and James Caldwell, age 6.
A substantial carriage house was added in the same year. The carriage house had a stable, hayloft, garage, gymnasium and servant's quarters. When the McFaddins' daughter Mamie married Carroll Ward in 1919, the newlyweds moved in with the McFaddins and lived their entire married lives there.
Before Mamie McFaddin Ward died in 1982, she created a foundation to preserve the house as a museum which opened to the public in 1986. Guests ages 8 and older are welcome for tours of the home led by volunteer docents Tuesday through Saturday. The museum strongly encourages reservations as tours run approximately one to one and a half hours long. Self-guided tours of the first floor are available on Sundays. The carriage house and grounds are open to all ages during museum hours. Outside the three-floor home are spacious lawns, flower beds and rose gardens. Inside, a substantial permanent collection of antique furniture and household items are in view. The McFaddin–Ward House is one of the few house museums in which the home's original furnishings are intact and on display. It is also one of the few Beaux-Arts Colonial homes still open to the public.
Educational programs focus on history and are geared toward children and adults. The museum hosts lectures, special celebrations, summer camps, and open houses. New exhibits and displays are changed often, giving fresh interpretations of the home. Christmas time is especially celebrated with special events and an open house when the public is invited to enjoy eggnog and McFaddin family recipes before touring the first floor of the house.
In addition, it was named a Texas State Historic Landmark in 1976. The home has been featured various TV's Arts & Entertainment's America's Castles as a Lone Star Estate (only 3 Texas homes were featured), and the house has been included in several important architectural books.[2]
Address: 1906 Calder St, 77701-1517 Beaumont
Fire Museum of Texas
Museum in Beaumont, Texas. The Fire Museum of Texas is located in a former fire station, the former Central Fire Station, in Beaumont, Texas, built in 1927. The building is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, and is an example of the Renaissance Revival. The building houses state-of-the-art interactive fire safety exhibits with a collection of antique fire equipment dating as early as 1856. It also has a two-story interactive playhouse for children to learn fire safety. Another feature is that "...the world's largest working fire hydrant...", a towering twenty-four feet tall, is in front of the building. In addition to the fire hydrant, the museum features the State of Texas Firefighter Memorial, a 9-11 Memorial, and a Firefighter commemorative walkway.
Permanent exhibits trace history of fire fighting from bucket brigades to present practices. Several antique trucks are featured dating from 1856. Temporary exhibits can also be found at the museum.
The museum is part of a concentration of several museums in the downtown Beaumont area. It is located blocks away from the Tyrrell Historical Library, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, the Beaumont Children's Museum (temporarily located in the Beaumont Civic Center), and the Edison Museum.[3]
Address: 400 Walnut St, 77701-2344 Beaumont
Julie Rogers Theater
Theater in Beaumont, Texas. The Julie Rogers Theater is a historic performing arts theater located on Pearl Street in downtown Beaumont, Texas. Built in 1928, the theater was once Beaumont's City Hall and Auditorium. The capacity is approximately 1,663 seats.[4]
Address: 765 Pearl St, 77701-3313 Beaumont
Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum
Museum in Beaumont, Texas. The Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum is located in Beaumont, Texas, to commemorate the discovery of oil at the Spindletop Hill salt dome in Beaumont on Jan. 10, 1901. The discovery sparked an oil boom in Texas that continues today. Along with a gift shop with commemorative gifts, the museum features historical, period reenactments by area performers. A replica of the wooden oil derricks that once dotted the landscape of Spindletop Hill in the early 1900s has been erected near the museum. For special occasions and anniversaries, the museum staff “blows the gusher” with a plume of water and provides a historical narrative and sound effects to simulate the discovery of oil at Spindletop.
The museum is on the campus of Lamar University, which owns and operates the museum.[5]
Address: 5550 Jimmy Simmons Blvd., 77705 Beaumont
Edison Museum
Museum in Beaumont, Texas. The Edison Museum, a science and history museum about the life and inventions of Thomas Edison, is located in Beaumont, Texas at 350 Pine St. on the grounds of Edison Plaza.[6]
Address: 350 Pine St, 77701-2437 Beaumont
Dishman Art Museum
Museum in Beaumont, Texas. The Dishman Art Museum is an art museum on the campus of Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. Admission to the museum is completely free; the gallery is open from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Monday - Friday. The museum also serves as a teaching facility in the Art Department at Lamar University. Exhibitions change monthly. The gallery features one-person exhibition of contemporary artists, group exhibitions of contemporary artists, Art Department faculty shows, graduating senior shows, a national competition, artist-in-residency, Grand Bal, and High School Scholarship exhibitions. There are three gallery spaces - Upper Gallery, Lower Gallery, and the Heinz and Ruth Eisenstadt Collection which consists of 150 19th-century paintings and 250 porcelains and objets d'art. The exhibition space totals 6,000 square feet.[7]
Address: 1030 Lavaca St, 77705 Beaumont
Art Museum of Southeast Texas
Museum in Beaumont, Texas. The Art Museum of Southeast Texas is an art museum in Beaumont, Texas, United States. Established in 1950 as the Beaumont Art Museum, it acquired its current name in 1987. It exhibits 19th-21st century fine art and regional folk art from the U.S. and Mexico.[8]
Address: 500 Main St, 77701-3213 Beaumont
Woman's Club of Beaumont Clubhouse
The Woman's Club of Beaumont Clubhouse, at 575 Magnolia Ave. in Beaumont, Texas, was built in 1909. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. It has also been known as the Woman's Reading Club.
It was deemed "historically significant for its long association with the development of cultural and social life in the city. Built shortly after the 1901 Spindletop oil discovery, the clubhouse provided a community cultural center with an auditorium and stage for housing educational activities, socials, banquets, dances, plays, musical concerts and art exhibits." The building was used for Red Cross fundraising and otherwise to support the World War I effort, and then again later to support the World War II effort.
It includes Classical Revival influences in its columns and pilasters.[9]
Jefferson Theatre
Theatre in Beaumont, Texas. The Jefferson Theatre is a historic performing arts theatre located on Fannin Street in downtown Beaumont, Texas. Designed by Emile Weil and built in 1927, it is an example of Old Spanish architecture and seats over 1400. The theatre was built by Jefferson Amusement Company, which was owned by Saenger Amusements. The theatre is featured on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. The theatre recently underwent a comprehensive multimillion-dollar renovation. It is also one of the few theatres in the country containing its original Morton organ, produced by the Robert Morton Organ Company.[10]
Address: 345 Fannin St, 77701-3207 Beaumont
Saint Anthony Cathedral Basilica
Cathedral in Beaumont, Texas. Saint Anthony Cathedral Basilica in Beaumont, Texas is the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont. The cathedral was raised to the status of a Minor Basilica in 2006.[11]
Address: 700 Jefferson St, 77701-2844 Beaumont
Temple Emanuel
Reform synagogue in Beaumont, Texas. Temple Emanuel is a Reform Jewish synagogue in Beaumont, Texas.
The congregation was founded in September 1895, and erected its first building in 1901. This wooden building in Neo-Byzantine style design was replaced by the congregation's current brick building in 1923.
Particularly notable are the congregation's set of six windows, each 16-feet high, designed by Ze'ev Raban. The windows were commissioned from Raban in 1922 by Rabbi Samuel Rosinger. Each window depicts an event in the life of one of the principal Hebrew prophets, Jeremiah, Elijah, Elisha, Ezekiel, Moses, and Isaiah.[12]
Address: 1120 Broadway St, 77701 Beaumont
Beaumont Children's Museum
Museum in Beaumont, Texas. The Beaumont Children's Museum is a children's museum temporarily located in the Beaumont Civic Center in Beaumont, Texas.
The museum is part of a concentration of several museums in the downtown Beaumont area. It is located across the street from the Tyrrell Historical Library, Art Museum of Southeast Texas and the Texas Energy Museum. The Edison Museum and Fire Museum of Texas are within a few blocks.[13]
Address: 701 Main St, 77701-3318 Beaumont
Jefferson County Courthouse
Courthouse. The Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas is one of the tallest courthouses in the state, and is an excellent example of Art Deco architecture. Built in 1931, it is the fourth courthouse built in Jefferson County. It was designed by Fred Stone and Augustin Babin, and is thirteen stories high. In 1981, an annex was added to the west side of the courthouse.[14]
Beaumont Botanical Gardens
Botanical garden in Beaumont, Texas. The Beaumont Botanical Gardens, also known as the Tyrrell Park Botanical Gardens, includes botanical gardens and the 10,000 sq ft Warren Loose conservatory. The gardens are located in 500 acre Tyrrell Park at 6088 Babe Zaharias Drive, Beaumont, Texas, USA. An extra benefit is that the gardens are located in a migratory bird flyway. Tyrrell Park is listed on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail map.[15]