Historic Beaumont Rice Mills Era Comes to an End

Like most trailblazers, J.E. Broussard was gifted with the ability to foresee what could be and the wisdom and motivation to make it happen. Although well established in rural ranching life, after his marriage to Belle he began to feel the tug of the city. They relocated to Beaumont, where J.E. bought a one-third interest in a corn and grist mill from C.L. Nash and J.S. Price, where grain was turned into flour. Within three years, he converted it into The Beaumont Rice Mills, the first rice mill in Texas, which began operation in 1892.

J.E. was very familiar with the growing of rice, for his Hebert ancestors had been rice farmers in Louisiana before relocating to Texas.  Louisiana’s rice boon started about 1884 with the introduction of mechanical harvesting equipment, but due to pricey Louisiana land many of the farmers headed across the state line to Texas, where land was abundant and cheap. “I literally grew up in the rice industry,” said J. E. Broussard, Sr. in a former interview, “there was never any doubt in my mind that I wanted to play a part in this industry,” he concluded. And play a part he did, for he is credited as being one of the major contributors to the development of the rice industry in Texas. 

Three years of drought dealt the Providence rice crops a heavy blow and J.E knew something must be done if the rice industry was to survive. Just prior to converting the mill, J.E. along with W.G. Lovell and B.C. Hebert, built small pumping plants on Taylor’s Bayou to water the crops, this eventually brought about the formation of the Beaumont Irrigation Company in 1898. Next came the pumping plant on Pine Island Bayou, watering 3,000 acres the first year. “The two things that bothered me the most when I was building up the business were water and credit,” said J.E. in a 1954 interview with reporter Sigman Byrd. “I solved the water problem by throwing up levees and pumping water out of Pine Island Bayou,” he stated. The 1898 Beaumont Irrigation Company was co-founded by Broussard, with W.S. Davidson, J.F. Goodhue, and his brother-in-law, I.R. Bordages. The initial canal led to the formation of the Lower Neches Valley Authority which pumps out of the Neches River. The second problem J.E. encountered was banks considered rice farmers a high-risk investment and refused to loan money to them. Once again J.E. saw the need and rose to the occasion, making Beaumont Rice Mills the first lending institution for farmers, enabling them to get their crops planted. 

In 1905 the mill’s business had expanded to the point that they outgrew their original facility. Land was purchased on the outskirts of town at 1800 Pecos St. and a new mill was built. Mr. Broussard had wanted to introduce new equipment designs and new methods of operation and this provided the opportunity to do so. Three of these machines known as monitors remained in use for many years. They were identified in the milling trade simply as “The Broussard Special.”   Tragically, less than a month after opening the $85,000 structure was consumed by fire, reducing it to a smoldering mass of ruin within an hour’s time. The only building saved was the seven-story rough rice elevator located on the east side of the mill.  Insurance fell $40,000 short of covering the loss. Standing amidst the ashes, Joe Broussard surveyed the damage, processed the loss, then true to his character, made a plan announcing the next day they would rebuild even bigger. An eternal optimist, he chose never to see his glass as half empty but half full. He quickly instructed the employees to return to the old mill and continue milling rice. Written in the fifty-year anniversary book, one veteran employee recalls, “We took a look at what was left, picked up our dinner pails, moved back to the old plant and started milling rice again without losing a day.”  

In 1907, J.E. was one of the original organizers and first president of the newly formed Rice Millers and Dealers Association, forerunner of the present Rice Millers Association of America. He continued to hold the office of president for the first five years. 1909 dealt another hard blow to the rice industry as surplus rice threatened financial disaster. Out of this disaster the Southern Rice Growers’ Association was formed, launched by Frank Randolph of the Crowley Signal. He rallied the prominent rice growers from all over the rice belt to be a part of the newly formed organization in hopes of creating a stable market for rice. J.E. became a board member and director of the organization and once again stepped up to the plate to ensure the success of the industry making a trip in May 1911 to Germany and Holland to find new markets for American rice. Traveling with him was long-time friend, Theodore Willick, a rice importer and exporter in New York city. They managed to sell the rice to the firm of Van Schardenburg of Rotterdam, Holland, who purchased all 250,000 pockets (bags) of available U.S. surplus rice opening the gateway to European markets. It was reported at that time to be the largest single sale for foreign markets ever from the United States.  The rice was sent in three separate shipments by way of the Port Arthur port. Three-fourths of the rice shipped was from Texas farms with the remainder from Arkansas and Louisiana farms. The Rotterdam mill held the rice for two years, and then sold a quarter of it back to the United States. Willick was the buyer and turned a sweet profit when he resold the rice to the New Orleans Rickert Rice Mill. The facility of the Von Schardenburg mill, which was the largest mill in Rotterdam in 1911, was destroyed by German bombings during World War II. Willick traveled to Texas in 1942 to visit J.E. during the 50th Anniversary of the mill, plopping a yellowed sample of 33-year-old Honduras rice on J.E.’s desk. J.E., puzzled at first, laughed when he realized it was the same sample that had traveled to Europe with them in 1911. One interesting side note on Willick of New York is that his great-great-grandfather, George Willich (German spelling) emigrated from Germany and landed in Anahuac, Texas in 1834. The Chambers County Museum at Wallisville is in possession of the letter he wrote home to Germany upon his arrival here chronicling his trip from Germany to Anahuac. It was donated to our museum by Lloyd Maxwell, grandson of Elmer Boyt. Lloyd informed me that in 1942, the same year Theodore traveled to the 50th Anniversary of the mill, his Uncle Pat Boyt and father, George Maxwell had visited with Theodore Willick at an American Rice Growers Association meeting in Lakes Charles, where Willick owned a small mill. They presented a copy of his great-great-grandfather’s letter to him at that time.

In a 2017 interview with reporter Dan Wallach Louis stated that Beaumont Rice Mills has had a global reach through the years, with markets in Panama, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Haiti. The mill sold rice in Iraq before it stopped U.S. imports, and the mill sent rice to Iran. Cuba was a major customer, particularly for the mill’s label, Sunset Rice, before the U.S. embargo in 1962 closed the market. 

“The process of milling rice hasn’t changed much over the years except for the equipment,” said Louis. “You take in the rough rice; it has the kernel on it then you have to shell it and you get brown rice. From there it goes to the pearlers which takes the bran off of it, then to bagging and shipping,” he explained, giving me the condensed version of the operation before we began our tour. 

Leaving the mill office on the third floor, Louis escorted me through a side door that exited onto the roof of the second floor. From this vantage point, I had a birds-eye view of all the mill facilities, as did the row of pigeons lined up on the high-line wires, still hoping to grow fat on the grain that once fell by the wayside. Pecos One and Two, where the rough rice was delivered from the fields, towered behind the office building on the south side. The downspout that delivered the grain from the elevator on the east side to the milling side where we stood was clearly visible at this height. 

“Rice would arrive by truck and after the trucks were weighed to calculate the amount of grain the rough rice would be put into the grain elevator,” said Louis. “Part of the elevator is the original structure from 1892. We have five dryers here. Back when the industry still used a lot of bobtail trucks, we were able to drive them in and unload them at the main elevator. After about twenty years, they started delivering with bigger trucks and we couldn’t take the weight, so everything was unloaded at our outside facility, ‘Pecos One.’ If we buy dry rice out in the marketplace, we bring it in and put it in storage. We sell milled rice, then, once we have a buyer, move it over to the mill to begin the milling process. We have two ways to get rice to the mill, we have a downspout that delivers the rough rice from the elevator to the mill and if we are milling out of Pecos One or Pecos Two, we have a conveyor belt that moves the rice to the mill, the mill consists of four floors. When the whole rice and brokens and brewers are milled, they’re ready to go to the clean rice bins. Once it is cleaned and sent to shipping, we either bag it in 100–110-pound bags or load it in bulk hopper cars or trucks,” noted Louis. 

Situated between the two buildings where the milling and shipping takes place lies a set of tracks where rail cars and hopper cars once were in constant motion transporting rice. An aged tractor Louis repaired and brought in from the family ranch to move them keeps a lonely vigil, once again destined for retirement. We first entered the main elevator, seventy percent of which was part of the original structure. The elevator is where the rough rice was handled from drying to grading. The building contained two hoppers where trucks dumped their loads of rice. Next to the hoppers were located the dryers where the rice was filtered in through a set of screens. 

Located on the north end of the elevator is a grading room, basically a small-scale milling operation. A sample of the rough rice was brought in and put through a small shelling machine. From each lot of rice, a hundred and sixty-two pounds of rice would be weighed in, then shelled. From there it was put into a mini version of a milling McGill, which took the rice bran and hulls off leaving only white rice. The rice is then weighed again giving you the total weight of the whole, brokens and brewers which would probably be 115 pounds remaining from the original 162 pounds of rough rice. The white rice is then put into a shaker and the whole rice shakes down into a pan and weighed again. The finished weight of the milled whole grain would be about one hundred pounds so; one hundred and sixty-two pounds of rough rice would have yielded 100 pounds of milled whole rice, fifteen pounds of brokens and brewers, and forty-seven pounds of bran and rice hulls. “Once the green rice is dried it is graded and the grader gets the milling yield. From there we use that information to buy the rice,” explained Louis.

Leaving the elevator, we walked across to the building where the milling process took place. Sitting on the loading platform were several forgotten 100-pound-bags of rice that failed to make the final shipment. Vintage carts and hand trucks neatly arranged in the midst of the large storage area we entered sat forlornly empty with no work in sight. Adjacent to them was the hopper where all the rough rice came into the mill, either from Pecos One, Pecos Two, or the main elevator. From there it was transported to the fourth floor where it went through a scale to weigh it. Inside the mill were multiple elevators where rice once was constantly being moved up or down. The elevator belts had cups (small buckets) evenly spaced along the belt which would drop into the rice and scoop it up for transport to the various milling and storage locations. There were several hoppers for storing the milled rice: one for whole rice, one for brokens, and one for screenings. Vertical pearlers, on the second floor, polished the rice, Louis explained that the amount of weight applied made the difference of how much polishing was done. Once polished it was transported to the milled storage bins on the first floor to await bagging or bulk shipping. 

“Over the years that I’ve been here we have kept up with technology. My great grandfather had a good business plan, and it stuck for 132 years. From where I sit the biggest change is exporting the rough rice to other countries where they operate their own mills,” said Louis. “So, they’re exporting the raw material, and this has really started growing in the past four or five years. Because of this, the milled rice demand is slowly deteriorating; we don’t have the demand we used to. For example, with the 2023 crop they exported 1,800,000 tons of raw rice and we haven’t even hit 600,000 tons of exported milled rice, it’s backwards,” noted Louis with frustration. “The rice producers can make more money selling it in the rough than to a rice mill. Four or five years ago we considered building a new mill and on paper it paid for itself, but the long-term market outlet didn’t justify it. I believe this market is moving towards a growing rough rice export,” surmised Louis sadly. “It’s sad that we had to shut it down, but everything comes to an end.”