Bethlehem Beaumont Shipyard was a shipyard in Beaumont, Texas that opened in 1948. The yard is located on an island in the Neches River and upstream of the Sabine Pass that grants access to the Gulf of Mexico. The deep-water port shipyard was founded in 1917 as the Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company. Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company started as a World War I Emergency Shipbuilding Program yard.
In 1922 the Pennsylvania Car & Foundry, of Sharon, Pennsylvania purchased the yard and renamed the yard Pennsylvania Shipyards, Inc.. The yard built barges and rail cars and also operated under the name Petroleum Iron Works at the site. For World War II the yard build tugboats and barges as part of the emergency shipbuilding program. After the war Bethlehem Steel purchased the yard in 1948 as part for the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. Bethlehem Beaumont Shipyard transitioned the yard into a jackup rig offshore drilling rig yard.
The yard closed in the 1980s, with the rig market collapse. Bethlehem Steel sold the yard in 1989 to Trinity Industries. Trinity Industries purchased a Panamax floating drydock and continued operations. The drydock was moved to New Orleans in 1994. Chicago Bridge & Iron Company purchased the yard in 2006. Chicago Bridge & Iron turned the yard into a fabrication yard. In 2017 Chicago Bridge & Iron Company closed the yard due to damage from Hurricane Harvey, ending work for 455 employees. Many of workers were relocated to other Chicago Bridge & Iron sites. The site is now Allegiant Industrial Island Park Campus that opened in 2018.[1][2][3][4]
- ^ "Bethlehem Beaumont, Pennsylvania Shipyards".
- ^ Bethlehem Steel Company Shipbuilding Division. A century of progress, 1849-1949: San Francisco Yard. San Francisco, 1949
- ^ ""Workers leaving Pennsylvania shipyards, Beaumont, Texas" · SHEC: Resources for Teachers". shec.ashp.cuny.edu.
- ^ CB&I to close facility in Beaumont due to Harvey damages, affecting 455 employees, Sept. 2007