Photograph of the two-story McClanahan House. This home is the oldest business structure in Beeville. It was constructed in approximately 1867. It has served as a general store, lodging house, and post office.

Postcard of the two-story Baroque architecture styled home of Mrs A. C. Jones located at 611 East Jones St. Philanthropist and supporter of local schools, Mrs. A.C. (Jane Field) Jones (1842-1918) built the house on this site after her husband Captain Jones’ death in 1906. Governors and other Texas leaders were welcomed here. Located on the hill where the college stands today, the first and much grander A.C. Jones home was sold to the John Flournoy and moved into town by mule and wagon. It stood facing Flournoy Park until it was razed in 1946.

Photograph of John W. and Gussle Flournoy's early Beeville home. Flournoy John W. Flournoy, a Lockhart native, came to Beeville with little more than a mule and his saddle bags after graduating from Emery and Henry College in Virginia in 1879. He met and married (1881) Miss Gussie Hitchings, a teacher from Normanna, and the couple moved to Beeville. Flournoy was a teacher, attorney, railroad booster, legislator, and banker. He served as the president of Commercial Bank in Beeville from 1898 until his death in July of 1916. “Miss Gussie”, whose buggy was parked outside of elementary schools for many years, was a respected Beeville teacher for thirty-seven years. Flournoy Elementary School, built in 1952, was named for her. John and Gussie later bought A.C. Jones home which was located on the hill where the college now stands. They moved this grand home into town by mule and wagon. It sat across from Flournoy Park until it was razed in 1946.

Photograph of one of the bedrooms inside the McClanahan house, 206 E. Corpus Christi St. Oldest business structure in Beeville, erected about 1867 on east side of courthouse square, near Poesta Creek. General store, lodging house, post office. Pioneer western style, with southern porches. Built by G.W. McClanahan, Beeville's first merchant, school teacher, postmaster, county clerk, inn keeper, Sunday school superintendent. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1964

Postcard showing the business section of Washington Street in Beeville in the 1930 or 1940's.

Beeville’s oldest cemetery, Evergreen Cemetery, is on Block 1 of the original town site map which was donated in 1859 by Anne Burke. First owned by G.W. McClanahan, the land was bought in 1862 by the county for a “public burying ground”. In 1872, H.W. Wilson donated the northeast strip. Land was added on the northwest, and the court gave consent for a fence. The cemetery was restored in 1970. The cemetery is bounded by Polk, Bowie, Filmore, and Hefferman Streets. The graves shown in the picture are those of the Jones and Carter families.

Photograph of the inside of the McKinney Brothers Store located in downtown Beeville. According to local legend, a KKK boycott forced Frank McKinney to close the store after he refused to boycott their Catholic customers.

Photograph of the inside of the McKinney Brothers Store.

Postcard of the "Swimming Pool, Chase Field, Beeville, Texas" as printed at the bottom of the card. On June 1, 1943, Chase Field was commissioned as a Naval Air Auxiliary Station to train naval aviators during World War II. The base was named for Lt. Cmdr. Nathan Brown Chase, who went down in the Pacific on a training flight in 1925. After the war, Chase Field was closed until 1953, when it was reopened during the Korean War to help with the over-crowding at NAS Corpus Christi. In July 1968, Chase Field was elevated in status to a full naval air station. With the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the number of armed forces was greatly reduced and on July 1, 1991, Chase Field was put on the list for closure. VT-26 was decommissioned May 22, 1992, with VT-24 and VT-25 de-commissioned on September 18, 1992. Finally, on February 1, 1993, Chase Field was officially disestablished, bringing an end to fifty years of service in naval training.

Postcard of a scene showing the area "Along the Highway Near Beeville, Texas" as printed at the bottom of the postcard. Note the electrical lines along the road. Beeville first connected with the outside world by telegraph on July 20, 1885, when the first telegraph office opened on the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad, even before the tracks were completed. Later, in 1891, Wright Van Meter set telephone poles along the Beeville-Refugio Road to Quincy’s Land and Colonization Company. Before 1900, Beeville had two telephone companies, the Southwestern Telephone and Telegraph Company and Eureka Telephone Company. Electrical lights went on in Beeville on November 30, 1896. L.D. Rhodes set up a plant near the Sims gin. Before 1900, lights were turned on and off because too many preferred the oil lamp. Central Power and Light came to Beeville in 1925 and the R.E.A. served all other rural areas.

Photograph of seven members of Beeville's American Legion Post 274 Orchestra. R. Frank O'Reilly was the director of the orchestra. The Bee County American Legion Post was organized in 1921.

This portrait of Barnard E. Bee, Jr. in his military uniform hangs in the McClanahan House in Beeville. Barnard E. Bee, Jr. was the son of Anne and Barnard E. Bee, Sr. (for whom Bee County is named) and was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1824. He moved to Texas with his family in 1836, but later returned to the east and graduated from West Point. He served with honors in the Mexican War. In 1861 he resigned from the US Army and joined the First South Carolina Regulars, a Confederate regiment of artillery. While assigned to the Army of Virginia at Manassas Junction, Bee is given credit for ordering his men to “Rally behind the Virginians! There stands Jackson like a stonewall!”. He fell mortally wounded at this First Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, and died on July 22, 1861. His body is buried at Pendleton, South Carolina. He was the brother of Texas Statesman, Hamilton Bee.

Portrait of A. V. Schvab, a jeweler and operator of the Kohler Hotel. Hotel Kohler, built in 1932 was a three-story structure located at the corner of Washington and Cleveland Streets.

Photograph of C. A. Pressey sitting in his airplane, which is the first airplane for Bee County. In 1911 Charley A. Pressey arrived from Georgia in a Curtiss flying machine. Charley Pressey is also known for establishing the first moving picture theater in Beeville in 1906. The name of the business was Superba Family Theatre and the admission price was five cents.

Photograph of C. A. Pressey flying the first plane in Bee County. In 1911, Charley A. Pressey arrived from Georgia in a Curtiss Flying machine to the thrill of the people of Bee County. Mr. Pressey returned to live in Beeville after his retirement. Trans-Texas Airways made the first air passenger and air-mail flight into Beeville in July, 1949, but it contiued for just a little more than a year. Oscar Travland opened Travland Airport north of the city during the 1940's, and operated it for a number of years. In February, 1967, the city of Beeville opened a municipal airport about three miles west of town.

Photograph of a man and C. A. Pressey standing behind his plane that has crashed. This is the first plane crash that occurred in Bee County. In 1911 Charley A. Pressey arrived from Georgia in a Curtiss flying machine. It was the first airplane most of the residents of Beeville had ever seen.

Photograph of Confederate Veterans at a reunion in Beeville in the late 1890's. Texas furnished about 75,000 soldiers to the Confederate cause. Even though Bee County was only three years old in 1861, many men from the county served the Confederacy. Some died for it. When the war started there were seventy slaves in Bee County. There were many hardships for the citizens of Bee County during the War. A severe drought in 1863 and 1864 made it hard for the people of the county. There was not enough corn to supply local needs. Coffee was not available. Some made a substitute coffee out of parched corn, rye, okra, beans, and even potatoes. There was no sugar available. Calico was worth $50 a yard in Confederate money. Corn cobs were burned and the ashes was used for soda. For medicine, those who were ill used herbs, roots, and bark of certain trees. Women carded cotton into fluffy wads, spun it on spinning wheels into thread, and wove the thread into corse cloth. In 1865 the war ended and the men came home.

In 1905, the Anniversary Club held their annual banquet, which was attended by prominent Beeville business men and their wives. Their names are listed at the bottom of the picture, along with a copy of the membership of the club, and the menu for the banquet. In the 1890’s and early 1900’s the Anniversary Club, a men’s club, met once a month and held birthday dinners which were served at the Nations Hotel. From its beginning clubs and organizations played an important part in the progress of the citizens of Bee County, both culturally and civically.

Photograph of James and Lee Crawford Brother's Freight Co. located in Oakville, Texas. In the foreground, loads of cotton are piled onto mule-drawn wagons. F. H. Church stands in front of the mules in the foreground. Three wagons are visible in front of wooden building. The driver of the first wagon is James Crawford. The photograph was taken at or near where Monroe Fink's office is now. If cotton was hauled to the coast for shipment, it came through Beeville.

Photograph of loads of cotton piled onto mule-drawn wagons outside of Wimmer Store in Oakville,located in Live Oak County, Texas. The wagon driver is Lee Crawford. Similiar scenes took place across Bee County in the early 1900's.

1906 photograph of veterans of the Texas Revolution. Pictured are W. P. Zuber of Austin, J. W. Darlington of Taylor, Aca C. Hill of Oakville, S. F. Sparks of Rockport, L. T. Lawlor of Florence, and Alfonso Steel of Mexia. "We'll rally 'round the flag boys, we'll rally once more". The Texas Veterans Association, an organization of those who had served prior to, during, and immediately after the Texas Revolution, held its first convention in Houston on May 13–15, 1873, with about seventy-five veterans present. After 1876 the annual meetings, held in some seventeen different Texas cities, always took place in the week including April 21, San Jacinto Day. At the Goliad meeting in 1906 only six of the last ten known survivors of the Army of the Republic of Texas were present: William P. Zuber, Alfonso Steele, John W. Darlington, Asa C. Hill, S. F. Sparks, and L. T. Lawlor. The association dissolved in Austin on April 19, 1907, during its thirty-fifth annual convention. With its dissolution its work was taken over by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. The stories of some of these men can be found in the Handbook of Texas.

In 1876, Stephen Canada conducted a school for Black Americans in his store seven miles above Beeville. After lumber from the old Methodist Church was donated for a school for Black American children, Stephen Canada and Mose Lott were the carpenters who built the school at 107 Burke Street. In 1931, a new school was built for Black American children. This new school was named the Lott-Canada School in honor of these two men. In this picture Stephen Canada is standing with three children from the Cox family.

Mary Lee Pettus Canada’s obituary. Mary Lee Canada was a respected resident of Beeville for more than sixty years. Born in Goliad on September 26, 1884, Mary Lee Pettus married Elvy Canada in 1909 and moved to Beeville. She was a member of Bethlehem Baptist Church and was the first Worthy Matron of the Golden Leaf Chapter # 593, Order of the Eastern Star which had been organized in Beeville in 1928. She and Elvy had one daughter, Alma Hampton, who worked the summers in the fields to earn money for her first tuition at Guadalupe, a school for blacks in Seguin, and taught school for forty-two years. Mary Lee Pettus Canada died on June 20, 1964.

Photograph of the front page of a funeral pamphlet for Mrs. Alma Lee Urps Hampton. Alma Lee Hampton was born on June 16,1902 to Mary (Pettus) and Dave Urps. She was reared by her mother and stepfather, Elvy Canada, a member of a pioneer Bee County family. As a child she attended Lott Canada School when it was a school with no name and only two teachers for about forty students. She was often taken out of school to chop cotton. She worked in the fields during the summer to earn money for her first year’s tuition at Guadalupe, a school for blacks in Seguin. With the support of her husband, Mitchell Hampton, a railroad man in Skidmore, and her mother, Mary Lee Pettus Canada, she earned her teaching certificate and bachelor’s degree from Texas Southern University in Houston. She began her teaching career in a one-room schoolhouse in 1926, and continued teaching for forty-two years. She went to Del Mar in Corpus Christi to fulfill her dream of learning piano, and later utilized this talent as pianist for the old Anderson chapel in Skidmore. Mrs. Hampton passed away March 7, 1998. The services were held at Bethlehem Baptist Church …