William Perry Herring “W.P.H.” McFaddin (1856-1935) was a prominent cattle rancher and businessman. Under his leadership, the McFaddin Ranches of Beaumont grew to encompass some 120,000 acres in Jefferson County and 48,000 acres in Knox and King counties. McFaddin also established companies in commercial real estate, rice farming and milling, canals and irrigation, and cattle feeding and meatpacking. The expansive McFaddin estate became the backbone of Southeast Texas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Arthur Edward Stilwell purchased large portions of the Jefferson County ranch to form the townsite of Port Arthur. It was also McFaddin land that Anthony Lucas leased to drill the Lucas Gusher—the discovery well of the Spindletop boom.
The McFaddin home movies capture the family in the 1930s, including visits to their Port Arthur beach house and the Texas Centennial celebration in Dallas.
