Located on a salt dome in west Chambers County, Texas, the community that was to become Mont Belvieu was established in 1849. The area rises from the surrounding prairie due to a salt dome extrusion which has pushed up the land’s surface. Amos Barber, the area’s first permanent settler, built his home and raised his family on what came to be known as Barbers Hill, or simply, the Hill.

The name Mont Belvieu appears to derive its origin in a deed description that transferred land ownership from Mr. Henry Griffith, who obtained his land rights through a Spanish land grant in 1830, to Mr. William B Duncan, the son-in-law of Mr. Griffith, in the year 1835. The deed refers to “that tract of land heretofore known as the Big Hill but hereafter to be called Mont Belview.” Afterward, in 1890, Z.T. Winfree applied for a post office for the community under the name of Mont Belvieu.

The community lay quietly as a center for farming and cattle-raising until 1916 when oil was discovered in the area of the Hill. Though this early discovery was of limited dimensions, land speculation became rampant with leases and land being bought and sold at a frenzied pace. In 1926 oil well wildcatter Mills Bennett tapped into the first of many gushers drilled on the hill.

P.O. Box 1048