Lower Neches Valley Authority in the context of Tyler County, Texas

Beaumont is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, located in Southeast Texas on the Neches River about 85 miles (137 km) east of Houston (city center to city center). With a population of 115,282 at the 2020 census, Its metropolitan area was the 10th largest in Texas in 2020, and 130th in the United States.

The city of Beaumont was founded in 1838. The pioneer settlement had an economy based on the development of lumber, farming, and port industries. In 1892, Joseph Eloi Broussard opened the first commercially successful rice mill in Texas, stimulating development of rice farming in the area; he also started an irrigation company (since 1933, established as the Lower Neches Valley Authority) to support rice culture. Rice became an important commodity crop in Texas and is now cultivated in 23 counties.

Joseph Eloi Broussard (December 16, 1866 – October 6, 1956) was a pioneer rice grower and miller in southeast Texas. He was born and grew up near Beaumont, Texas. In 1892 he converted a grist mill into the Beaumont Rice Mill, the first commercially successful rice mill in the state of Texas. He also established an irrigation company (later absorbed by the Lower Neches Valley Authority) to create an irrigation system to support rice agriculture.

As a result of his work, the cultivation of rice expanded from 1500 acres locally in 1892 to 400,000 acres in 23 Texas counties by the time of Broussard's death. His leadership and landholdings resulted in rice being cultivated in peak years on some 40,000 acres in the local area.