Beeville, Texas

Beeville is a city in Bee County, Texas, United States. Its population of 13,543 at the 2020 census makes it the 207th-largest city in Texas. It is the county seat of Bee County and home to the main campus of Coastal Bend College. The area around the city contains three prisons operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Many of the stately homes, commercial buildings, and schools in the area, including the Bee County Courthouse, were designed by architect William Charles Stephenson, who came to Beeville in 1908 from Buffalo, New York. Beeville is a national Main Street city. Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, and his son Lincoln, lived in the city during the time Rushmore was being sculpted.

History and culture
The original and official site on the Poesta River was first settled by the Burke, Carroll, and Heffernan families in the 1830s. Present-day Beeville was established on 150 acre of land donated by Ann Burke in May 1859, after the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States. It was first named "Maryville" for pioneer Mary Heffernan.

It was renamed Beeville after Barnard E. Bee, Sr., who had served as secretary of state and secretary of war for the Republic of Texas. It was called Beeville-on-the-Poesta, with a nearby community called Beeville-on-the-Medio 7 mi (11 km) to the west. The first post office opened in 1859.

In 1886, the first railroad was constructed through Beeville, stimulating the growth of the economy and population. The Southern Pacific Transportation Company operated these railroads until the early 1970s.



In September 1942, Alfred Irving, who is believed to be one of the final chattel slaves in the United States, was freed at a farm near Beeville. Alex L. Skrobarcek and his daughter, Susie, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Laredo, Texas on November 9, 1942. The pair were found guilty in Federal court in Corpus Christi, Texas on Thursday, March 18, 1943. Alex L. Skrobarcek was sentenced to only four years in prison, while his daughter, Susie Skrobarcek, received two years.

The United States Navy operated the Beeville Naval Air Station, which trained Navy airplane pilots during World War II from 1943 through 1946. The base was reopened in 1952 as Naval Air Station Chase Field, continuing in operation until 1992.

Beeville was served by Trans-Texas Airways during the 1950s; it operated scheduled passenger flights with Douglas DC-3 propeller airliners from Chase Field with service to Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Harlingen, Houston, San Antonio, and other destinations in Texas.

In 1967, the town was inundated by 30 in of rain during Hurricane Beulah.

Geography
The city's terrain ranges from flat to gently rolling slopes, set in the South Texas Brush Country.

Beeville is located between San Antonio and Corpus Christi. Travel time to Corpus Christi is approximately one hour, and to San Antonio is about 1$1/2$ hours by car.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.1 sqmi, all land.

Climate
The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters. The temperature is influenced by the warm waters of the nearby Gulf of Mexico. Prevailing southerly winds of 8 to 10 miles per hour (13 to 16 km/h) come off the gulf. Annual rainfall is about 30 inches (76 cm), fairly evenly distributed throughout the year. According to the Köppen climate classification, Beeville has a humid subtropical climate, Cfa on climate maps.

2020 census
As of the 2020 United States census, 13,669 people, 4,890 households, and 3,164 families were residing in the city.

Government and infrastructure
The Beeville City Council consists of Mayor Brian Watson, Mayor Pro-tempore Michael Willow Jr., Councilman Benny Puente, Councilman Alexis Bledsoe, and Councilman Darryl Martin.

The city has nine parks scattered among the neighborhoods, with a swimming pool at Martin Luther King-City Pool Park.

Prisons
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice operates the Correctional Institutions Division Region IV Office on the grounds of the Chase Field Industrial Complex, the former Naval Air Station Chase Field, near Beeville. In addition, Garza East Unit and Garza West Unit transfer facilities are co-located on the grounds of the naval air station; and the McConnell Unit lies about 1 mi outside the city limits. The Beeville Distribution Center is on the grounds of the air station.

Joseph T. Hallinan, the author of the 2001 book Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation, described Beeville as a prison town. At the time, Beeville was trying to attract more prison business since the employment is stable. Hallinan wrote that Beeville was attempting to be "a prison hub, becoming roughly what Pittsburgh is to steel or Detroit is to cars".

Education
Beeville is served by the Beeville Independent School District, which has about 3,500 students in six schools.

A. C. Jones High School contains a turfed football stadium and a softball and baseball complex. Sports include golf, basketball, baseball, softball, powerlifting, soccer, tennis, track, wrestling, and cheerleading. The teams are the Trojans and Lady Trojans, and their colors are orange and white. Other extracurricular programs include the Dazzlers Dance Team, band, choir, and theater arts.

All of Bee County is in the Bee County College District (doing business as Coastal Bend College), according to the Texas Education Code. The main campus of Coastal Bend College in Beeville opened in 1967 with 790 students. Today it has over 3,700 students, more than 1,200 of them full-time. Dormitories and apartments on campus provide affordable housing. The community college offers an associate degree in 26 different fields. (Other campuses are in Alice, Kingsville and Pleasanton.)

Library
The Joe Barnhart Bee County Library is located in downtown Beeville, directly across the street from the Bee County Courthouse.

Art museum
The Beeville Art Museum is a teaching museum, relying on traveling exhibitions. It is housed in the Esther Barnhart House. The house was built in 1910 by the R.L. Hodges family and occupied by their descendants until 1975. In 1981, the Hodges House and adjacent acreage were purchased by Dr. Joe Barnhart of Houston. He named the house the Esther Barnhart House in honor of his mother. He then developed the land into a park for the community. He named the park the Joe Barnhart Park in honor of his father.

Notable people

 * Byron Bradfute, National Football League player
 * James Gunn, Princeton astronomer, 2008 National Medal of Science
 * Rudy Jaramillo, Major League Baseball player and coach
 * Cyndi Taylor Krier, San Antonio politician, born in Beeville in 1950
 * Edmundo Mireles Jr., FBI agent involved in the 1986 FBI Miami shootout
 * Marianne Rafferty, Fox News presenter and reporter
 * Eddie Taubensee, Major League Baseball player
 * Curt Walker, was a professional baseball player who played outfield for the Philadelphia Phillies