Pompeiian Villa

Pompeiian Villa, the oldest landmark in Port Arthur, stands today as a reminder of the financial giants that founded and developed the city around the turn of the century. The villa was built by Isaac L. Ellwood in 1900, soon after the founding of Port Arthur.
Port Arthur was named for Arthur E. Stilwell, promoter and president of the Kansas City Southern Railroad, who established the city as a port and Southern terminus for his railroad. An earlier settlement, Aurora, had been founded at this site in 1840, but freezes, hurricanes, and the inaccessability of medical aid caused the area to be abandoned by 1890. Stilwell saw this land around the Sabine Lake as an ideal location for a seaport as well as a tourist attraction. bought 53,000 acres of land, setting aside 5,000 acres for the city and in 1895 the first crews began developing the area.

Stilwell built some of the finest shipping decks and one of the best grain elevators in the nation. He built a resort hotel and the popular Pleasure Pier, and ran train excursions into Port Arthur at reduced prices in order to popularize the city. Needing additional funding, Stilwell turned in 1898 to a daring financier, John W. (Bet-a-Million) Gates to interest him in refinancing the project. In December, 1898, Gates came to Port Arthur to inspect the ship canal, grain elevator, wharves and docks. He was immediately attracted by the splendid hunting and fishing on Lake Sabine, as well as the commercial propositions in the town, and agreed to refinance the railroad. By 1904 Gates' manipulations had brought the railroad under his complete control, and Stilwell, feeling he had been frozen out, left the city.

When Gates became interested in Port Arthur he also interested his friends in making investments there. Gates, Stilwell and an associate of Gates, Isaac L. Ellwood, bought lots for $12,000. They commissioned George C. Nimmons, a well-known Chicago architect, to build five cottages on the Sabine Lake front and to erect two mansions for Gates and Ellwood. Colonial Mansion and Ellwood's Pompeiian Villa were built on a tract of land on Lakeshore Drive now bounded by Vicksburg and Richmond avenues between Lakeshore Drive and Procter street.

As revealed in his nickname, Gates was a persistent gambler. A natural born super-salesman, Gates rose from the rank of a salesman to that of a dazzling, free-wheeling financial giant in only a few years. In 1873 Gates went to work as a salesman for Isaac L. Ellwood, the major developer of barbed wire. Within two years Gates proved his salesmanship talent and the barbed wire industry began to boom. However, when Gates asked Ellwood to make him a full partner and Ellwood refused, Gates left and formed his own barbed wire company. Ellwood brought injunctions. against him, but the results were unsatisfactory. The two men finally compromised and joined as associates in 1897 to form the American Steel and Wire Company.

Both Gates and Ellwood intended their Port Arthur mansions to be winter retreats. Gates moved his family to Port Arthur in 1899 and lived there a few months every year until his death in 1911. The Spindletop Oil Well, which blew up in 1901, only 12 miles north of Port Arthur, assured the continued and active interest of the ambitious Bet-a- Million Gates in this area. He was influential in locating the Gulf and Texaco Oil Refining Companies in Port Arthur, as well as establishing the city as the Port of Entry for the entire Sabine district in 1906. Gates also built a hotel, hospital, library, and business college in Port Arthur.

Ellwood, on the other hand, never settled in Port Arthur, but sold his villa within a year of its completion to James Hopkins, another business friend and associate of Gates. Mrs. Hopkins, after inspecting the area, was unhappy with the mosquitoes and muddy streets and refused to live in Port Arthur. Thus, Hopkins sold his property to George M. Craig.

Craig had been one of the initial settlers of Port Arthur in 1897. He became one of the most influential men in the entire Sabine district and was an energetic leader in Port Arthur's development. His first success was in helping Gates get deep water to Port Arthur for the shipping industry!

He became the first president of the First National Bank in 1900, was top man in the Port Arthur Townsite Company, and was later president of the Port Arthur Water Company. In addition, he was a big factor in helping to get the Gulf and Texaco Oil Refining Companies to locate in Port Arthur and made a special trip to Washington, D. C, with Gates to attempt to designate Port Arthur as the Port of Entry. In 1909 Craig left the First National Bank and became the founder and first president of the Merchants National Bank. Mr. Gates wanted Mr. Craig as his neighbor and encouraged him to buy the Ellwood home next to him. Craig did buy the house in 1902, but failing to envision the enormous future growth of the Texas Company, he unfortunately paid for the house with his 10 percent stock in that company. Craig and Gates remained close friends until Gates' death in 1911. Craig lived in the Pompeiian villa until he died in 1950. The original Gates home was demolished in 1960, but Pompeiian Villa stands today as a visible link with those ambitious founders of Port Arthur.