Beaumont is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Texas in the United States, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. Located in Southeast Texas on the Neches River about 90 mi east of Houston, Beaumont city had a population of 118,296 at the time of the 2010 census, making it the twenty-fourth-most populous city in the state of Texas.Beaumont was founded as a town in 1835 by Northerners. The early European-American 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 the state, stimulating development of rice farming in the area; he also started an irrigation company to support rice culture. Rice became an important commodity crop in Texas, and is now cultivated in 23 counties.A big change occurred in 1901 with the Spindletop gusher, which demonstrated the potential of the huge oil field.