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Valentine Wiess (1845-1913), fifth child of Simon Wiess and Margaret Sturrock. A successful businessman, in 1900, he built the first five-story brick building in Beaumont. By 1902, he became an early stockholder in the J.M. Guffey Production Company and later teamed up with W.P.H. McFaddin to found the McFaddin and Wiess Oil and Gas Company, headquartered at 302 Tevis Street. In conjunction with William McFaddin Sr. and Jr. and Obadiah Kyle, Valentine formed several companies involving land, rice-milling, canal and irrigation, and oil. Arthur E. Stilwell bought the town site for Port Arthur from the McFaddin's Beaumont Pasture Company, and it was on land leased from the McFaddins that Anthony F. Lucas drilled the Lucas Gusher, the discovery well of the Spindletop oil field. At the time of his death, 1913, Valentine was the largest taxpayer on Beaumont's tax rolls. His daughter, Ruth Wiess Sargent, later donated Wiess Park to the city of Beaumont.
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