First Baptist Church
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Tyrrell Historical Library (First Baptist Church)
1903, Alonso N. Dawson. 695 Pearl St.
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(Photograph by Gerald Moorhead ) -
(Photograph by Gerald Moorhead )
The former First Baptist Church is a castellated shell of Carthage, Missouri, limestone with staged towers and imposing stained glass windows. When the congregation built a larger church in 1923, Captain William C. Tyrrell, a Beaumont entrepreneur, bought the building and presented it to the City of Beaumont in memory of his wife, Ellen Christie Tyrrell, for use as a public library (1926, Livesay and Wiedemann). Since 1974 it has housed the Tyrrell Historical Library, Beaumont's history research center.
In the 700 block of Pearl is the former Beaumont City Hall and Auditorium (1928, F. W. Steinman and Son), now the Julie Rogers Theater for the Performing Arts (1982, Milton Bell and D. Rex Goode). The Tyrrell's successor, the present Beaumont Public Library, is a reinforced-concrete, glass-walled pavilion at 801 Pearl Street (1974, Steinman, Gordy and Huffhines) . Behind the Tyrrell library is the Texas Energy Museum at 600 Main Street.
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