Mildred Buildings - Beaumont, TX - Frieze Art on Waymarking.com

"The Mildred Buildings are a Mediterranean Revival style complex of apartment, store and garage buildings on half a city block at the corners of Calder Ave., Mariposa Street and Oakland, near downtown Beaumont. The exterior walls are terra cotta and brick with molded decorative concrete lintels, bronze and wood rejas and balustrades, and both mission tile and terra cotta parapet walls.

The Mildred Buildings were designed and built in 1929-30 by the Austin Co. of Texas, Dallas, Texas, for $700,000. The Mediterranean Revival-style complex of apartment building, store building and garage was commissioned by Miles Frank Yount, a wealthy Spindletop oilman. They were named for his 8-year-old adopted daughter. Mildred was said to be the wealthiest girl in the United States when she inherited $12 million in Spindletop oil resources at the age of fourteen. The building named for her is an excellent example of the elegant structures erected in Beaumont in the late 1920's and early 1930's due to the deep oil discovery at Spindletop by the YountLee Oil Co. in 1925. This oil discovery caused Beaumont's most rapid growth period and had a profound influence on the nation's economy as a whole. The buildings still maintain a high occupancy rate and prestigious reputation. It is an outstanding example of planned area development with the buildings and transition spaces thoroughly integrated with and related to each other."