And yet, Beaumont-native Teezo Touchdown has been able to harness that magic and breathe new life into it. I see it every time I’m there, but only in glimpses. It’s in the link sandwiches from Broussard’s, the empty railroad tracks, the pecan trees, and the thick, green St. In many ways, the city has since been forgotten, but there’s still a magic that exists in Beaumont. The town of Vidor, just 15 minutes outside of Beaumont, was known as a haven for Ku Klux Klan members and remains a sundown town to this day. In 1943, a race riot resulted in the destruction of several Black homes and businesses by white rioters. By the 1940s, the wartime shipbuilding industry turned it into a thriving Texas city. As a result, the little lumber town between Houston and Louisiana quickly became a boomtown in every sense of the word. Photo credit: For our latest First Look Friday, we talked with the enigmatic Teezo Touchdown about the importance of being an artist that also world builds and the story of his bass guitar.Īt the start of the 20th century, the Spindletop, an oil field in Beaumont, Texas, exploded, shooting oil 100 feet in the air for nine days.