Travis Street Substation
Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When Gulf States Utilities Company built this Travis Street substation building in 1929, a new era of progress began in Beaumont and all of southeast Texas. Additional farms, homes, and industries received access to dependable and economic electric power. In spite of the Great Depression, the company expanded to include 22 more communities. This substation provided street lighting and power for railway cars and switchboards, as well as electrical service for rice irrigation, cotton gins, gravel pit operations, and underground oil pumping to refineries.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Gulf States Utilities built this Travis Street substation in 1929, it opened a new era of dependable electric power across Beaumont and southeast Texas. Even through the Great Depression the company expanded to 22 more communities, wiring farms, homes, and industry. The substation powered street lights, railway cars, cotton gins, rice irrigation, gravel pits, and the underground pumping that moved oil to the region's refineries.
Why it matters
It marks the electrification that modernized the Texas Gulf Coast and fueled its booming oil and agricultural economy.
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Themes & tags
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