Beaumont Enterprise Vertical Files

The Beaumont Enterprise was founded in 1880 by John W. Leonard as a weekly paper, its first issue being November 6 of that year. Advertising had not yet emerged as the newspaper's chief financial revenue source, and at a quarter per month from subscribers, it was difficult to make a profit. Other papers had begun and failed in the years previous but by this time the population of Beaumont had reached approximately eighteen hundred from the growth of the lumber industry.

From meager beginnings, Leonard built the Enterprise until illness forced him to leave the area in 1882, at which time he left his interests to his brother-in-law Tom A. Lamb. Lamb continued the business until 1895, when he also sold his interests in the Beaumont paper.

A rival paper, The Beaumont Journal, was founded in 1889 by Robert Emmett Kelley, Secretary of Texas-Louisiana Lumber Manufacturing Association on the ground floor of a building on Crockett and Main Streets. After about a year, the Journal moved to the John N. Gilbert Building on Pearl and Bowie Streets. Early in 1896, the Enterprise began publishing as a daily newspaper and by June of the same year, the Journal followed suit, publishing six days per week.

In 1880, the Beaumont Enterprise was located in the Langham Building east of the Crockett and Pine Streets triangle. By 1885, the subscribership had grown enough to warrant building a wooden structure at Pearl and Bowie Streets, and after another five years, a "hollow" tile structure on Mulberry and Pine Streets was added to its property. In 1915, an annex was built on the Pine Street property, and the Enterprise bought the Decker building on Walnut and Mulberry Streets, which, in 1928, was demolished to make room for the three story Beaumont Enterprise building.

James L. Mape joined the Beaumont Enterprise in 1908 as Circulation Manager and is given credit for increasing circulation by 50%. By 1921, he had risen to Associate Publisher and Business Manager, and arranged the deal to purchase the Journal and its properties. The two papers continued together as the Beaumont Enterprise and Journal, with the Enterprise a morning paper and the Journal an evening paper. In 1983, the Journal was discontinued. The Hearst Newspaper Group purchased the Beaumont Enterprise in 1984 and continues its operation today.