Tom Bell with Beaumont Main Street Gives Insite Into Historic Downtown Buildings And A Free App To Check Them Out

• Tom Bell with Beaumont Main Street discusses some of the historic downtown buildings and the Explore Downtown Beaumont free app for a self-guided tour.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Well, today we're talking downtown Beaumontand the restoration of some of the historic
buildings in downtown Beaumont. And TomBell with Beaumont main Street joins us to
talk about what is going on downtownand what's going on to try and preserve
some of the architecture. And thanksfor sharing a little time with us.

(00:23):
Tom. There's a lot of historyin downtown Beaumont, man, there is,
and thank you for letting me comeover and talk about it with you.
It's something that you know, wehave a lot of history, and
a lot of people know about ourhistory, but a lot of people don't.
Well, I'm always a math andI had the opportunity recently Beaumont main

(00:43):
Street had a tour of some ofthe buildings downtown and I learned a lot
that I didn't know. I've beenaround Beaumont for a long time, and
I think like a lot of folkshave driven by those buildings a hundred times
and never understood the historical significance ofthe buildings. Yes, and we're trying

(01:04):
to change that with the technology wehave nowadays and everything else. The tour
that we just gave Jim that youcame and went on is something we do
every May. May is National PreservationMonth all across America, and so we

(01:29):
do a tour every May for peopleto come and look at our buildings and
learn more about them. And whatwe're really excited about this year, and
we've been wanting to do it fora long time, is we have thing
that you can get your iPhone oryour technology that you know you have nowadays,

(01:53):
and you can shoot our barcode orwhatever they call them. You know,
we got a little QR code corcode reader and that reader will download
a thing that we have called District, which is something that when you go
downtown and you see a building,you can pull that up and it will

(02:15):
go to the building you're looking atand it will tell you everything you want
to know pretty much historically about thatbuilding when it was built, Uh,
you know, who is the architect. All the information that is interesting about
that building is on our app.That's pretty cool because of course I made

(02:38):
the tour and you say you doit every maybe, but you don't have
to wait for that or a tourguide, Nope. With this app on
your phone, you can go You'reon tour o'clock in the morning on Sunday
if you want and take some knowledgewith you to be thinking about why you're
listening to them. Well, Iwill tell you the thing that fastated me,

(02:59):
And of course we toured a numberof buildings, but the thing it
also fascinated me was that there isa resurgence of some development. We toured
some buildings that are being renovated andare going to open as businesses, retail
businesses, and perhaps apartments. Someof them the use was hadn't been yet

(03:23):
determined. And then of course thebuildings that we all probably know and have
been in but didn't know the history. Going in the Jefferson Theater. The
history of the theater is astounding,and most of us have simply went in
there to watch a show and said, nice old building. But when you

(03:43):
look at it, well building,I'm old enough to have grown up going
to the Jeffer. That theater wasbuilt in nineteen twenty seven, so I
mean, you know, around fora while. I hadn't been here at
long, but it was a showplace where it was built. It was
the architecture in the building itself.People don't realize. I think sometimes the

(04:09):
jewels that are down exactly and wewould have lost that building. Back in
the day, it was being discussedwhere when you saved or not, and
luckily Beauma Main Street came in andwe got people involved and we started the
Jefferson Preservation Association. It's amazing andthat saved the Jefferson. And what is

(04:32):
amazing about it, it not onlysaved the Jefferson, but it saved the
Robert Martin organ which is in theJefferson, and that is a jewel.
There's only about four of them leftin the whole country, and I is
the only one that comes up outof the orchestra pit when you're fired up.

(04:56):
It's it is indeed like what youwould see in a the movie.
They had old movies in there andthe Doctor. I remember going to see
some of them. It is amazing. And then of course the Terrell Historical
Library, beautiful building. That beautifulbuilding was added on too with an extension
that they did a great job matchingthe architecture that Milton Bell. I don't

(05:20):
know if you remember Milton, butMilton worked on the Jefferson also when we
you know, remodeled it and itwas amazing what they did there. But
it was fun to watch Milton's additionthat he put all to the Tarrell and
how it complimented. Yeah, itall looks like it's all been there for

(05:42):
the whole time, for the wholetime. So, Beaumont Main Street,
one of your main thrust is therenovation of these buildings, that preservation of
them, and in some cases thatmeans it is the tour. We met
some of the entrepreneurs who are openingbusinesses down there or who have planned to
do something with those buildings to preservethem. Something has to be done.

(06:04):
It has to be a purpose tothe building. So you're trying to also
find some folks that would like toopen a business preserve the building. Maybe
blaff departments are something downtown. Yes, and we've had people do that and
some of them have been very successfuldoing them. But we got a lot
to go and we have a lotof buildings that are empty right now and

(06:28):
they're getting in bad repair and weneed the property owners to step up and
take care of them. And that'swhat we're pushing right now, all of
the preservation people in Beaumont. Wejust presented a plan to the city government
that we were asked for our inputto say what we think needs to be

(06:51):
done. And one of the thingsthat needs to be done is to make
property owners responsible for their property andtake care of it and don't let windows
fall out, and don't let itjust sit there and gather water to ruin
or whatever. And it's it's,you know, something that we don't have

(07:14):
any control of that, but thecity government does, and they can have
ordinances and different things that they cando to make sure that happens. And
again we're talking with Tom Bell ofBeaumont Main Street. You make a good
point time. At a certain point, no matter how much we love the
architecture or love the buildings, thereis a cost in renovating and renovating historically,

(07:40):
and a certain point, if thebuilding is allowed to deteriorate far enough,
it then becomes a hopeless project andthere is nothing left to do but
Terry yes. And back in thefifties we tore a lot of buildings down,
and I don't like that. Ithink that the buildings that we have
left should be saved. I don'twant to see any more buildings storing down

(08:05):
and bum up. But we havesome that are real close. Well.
In walking downtown Balmont, I noticedthat there are buildings of various eras.
Obviously, we've got some that dateback to the I guess what eighteen hundreds
or nineteen you know, Spinnle Topone started everything in downtown Balmont, and

(08:26):
they were buildings that were built rightafter, you know, the Lucas Gusher
came in, and then most ofthem came along when we had the second
Salt Dome that they and the earlytwenties is when a lot of these buildings
got built on in that decade ortwo. And like the Edson Hotel was

(08:48):
built back then, and at thetime, the Edson Hotels the tallest building
in the state of Texas, andpeople don't realize that, and it's still
now. The other thing I noticein downtown is you certainly have some of
the bank buildings, which I guessmaybe don't date back quite as far,

(09:11):
but very large structures sure a littleharder maybe to purpose them. You've got
a lot of building there as opposedto maybe some of the smaller buildings that
somebody could take over. And know, most of our old banks are in
good shape. Those buildings are inthe American National Bank that what we call
the four seventy Yorleans Building is inreal good shape. It has been taken

(09:35):
care of through the years. TheAmerican National Bank used to be in that
building. I think you came inon the shore that and saw the lobby
and all that saw the safe.Oh yeah, I mean that the First
City Bank building that you saw,Oh that's the safe And ye that building
is a little newer. We callit the egg Carton Bank because it looks

(09:58):
like an egg carton. True.The architect that did that, that was
innovative at the time. And everybodyknows that building in downtown because of its
outside structure. Well, you know, it's an interesting point. Also,
we've got all this historic structure.Some of it doesn't necessarily have to be
that old. This piece of architectureis what the fifties, early sixties.

(10:20):
Yeah, and this is innovative architecture. It is well worth preserving exactly well.
And you know, it's a situationto where we love it when that
happens. And you know a lotof banks have changed your names. Things
moved on in the banking business andFirst City Building is not a bank anymore.
But James Pain owns it now andhe takes very good care of it.

(10:45):
Like Mike Albanie takes good care ofthe Energy building, which is Hancock,
Whitney and Provost Umfrey. You knowsigns on it. That building's newer,
but the property owner takes care ofit and really make sure that things
look good and function right and everythingelse. And that's an important point in

(11:07):
the property owners of these buildings.And that's what Beaumont main Street would like
to see happen and tries to lobbyfor, is if you own the building,
take care of it. Thank you, because if you don't take care
of it, and if you don'thave a healthy downtown, you don't have
a healthy town. Well let meask, do you see and I know

(11:28):
we would not see a downtown ofthe fifties or sixties probably come back.
But it seems that many of thecities that I have been in, they
have some sort of downtown culture.There is some sort of downtown. Many
times it's an arts culture or smallshop owners. Is it important for Beaumont

(11:48):
in Southeast Texas and Beaumont being thelargest city to have a thriving downtown of
some sort of cultural center, Well, downtown Beaumont has ended up being more
of a business center. And youknow when main streets started. They were
small towns of twenty five thousand peopleor lands. It usually was a county

(12:11):
seat where the county courthouse was,and a little bit of restaurants and shops
and stuff were in that square becausepeople had to come to the courthouse to
get a marriage license or look upa deed or pay taxes or any of
that kind of stuff. So themerchants and the restaurants did real well because

(12:35):
it people were coming downtown. Andso what happened Beaumont is different than those
kind of towns. Our downtown isas big as some of the cities were
in other days. So you know, we're a National Historical District, and
we got forty four blocks in downtownBeaumont that or in that mindness, So

(12:58):
you know, we've got a lotof buildings, and we used to have
more, but of course in thefifties a lot of those two story,
three story about the only one thatwas saved that still kind of looks like
it did back in those days isCrockett Street. And I think there's a

(13:20):
movement now going on with the fellowthat had Cheddar's restaurant that is redoing the
restaurant that was the anchor restaurant inCrockett Street. He's putting a lot of
money in that restaurant and going toopen a steakhouse. And last time I
talked to him, he thought hewas going to be open maybe the middle
of the summer. And they're overthere working hard. And I think it

(13:43):
was on the tour that people gotto go look at that building and that
was one of the things that SaltopSteakhouse. Yah. I was surprised on
the tour that there are people activelydoing some things downtown, wanting to put
investment in downtown. Again, asyou said earlier, the buildings need to

(14:03):
be in the proper shape to makeit financially feasible to do that. But
just amazing and we've enjoyed talking withyou, Tom Bell. Beaumont main Street.
If somebody would like to get involvedor no more now, obviously you
can go to the website, youcan get the QR code. Encourage you
to do that, take your phone, go take your own tour of downtown.

(14:26):
There is so much to learn andso much fun. But how can
people get involved with Beaumont Main Street. Just go to our website and that's
the easiest thing. To do andit's Beaumont main Street dot org and he'll
tell you everything you need to do. Everything you need to know about downtown
is on that and it covers allthe things that we do from our events

(14:48):
like Oktoberfest to building of the monthsfor the people to take care of their
buildings, we put a planner outin front of it with flowers in it
to give them conregia lations for doingthat. We have student field trips downtown
of all the museums that are downtown. Once a year, we put them

(15:09):
on a bus and take them around. We can't take everybody we use they
have a small crowd because we haveto get the bus and all that,
and it's we have guided tours byrequests sometime. But you know, we
have main Street mixtures. We've gotuh you know the Treasury Awards that we

(15:31):
help people get that had been inbusiness for fifty years. On our twenty
fifth anniversary, we gave twenty fiveof those away to people that had been
in business for fifty years. Andthere's there were twenty five just that night
that we gave out our award toand that's something that is a big deal.

(15:52):
And you know, if anybody outthere has been in business for fifty
years, give us a call.It can't be. It has to be
a family owned business. It's beenyou know its people like the Ruddies were
with their car dealership and the Conselsand people like that that got these wardsh
text Joy you know got one,Uh, Colburn's got one. A lot

(16:18):
of companies in Beaumont. I've beenhere a long time. Wow, Andy,
we well, we thank you forbeing with us this day. We
went with these buildings to be herea little time. Yeah, thank you
so much for sharing with us.Well, listen, thank you