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About 15 miles southwest of the heart of Beaumont, Texas in Jefferson County lies a small community called

Fannet. Having settled in the area in the late 19th century, landowner B.J.

Fannet and partner Joe Dugall opened up a general store to service the Gulf and Interstate Railway.

And before long, in 1899, the men were able to get a United States post office set up there.

Though the population remained scant for the first quarter century of Fanon its existence,

it stood at around 75 residents until the late 1920s. Local ranchers and Japanese immigrants

who'd brought rice farming to the area were doing well during that period.

Japanese immigrants in fact were among the most respected business persons in the area,

particularly local rice farmer, Yoshio Miami.

It wasn't long before the community came together and built impressive and extensive irrigation and drainage networks to service the rice farms and cattle ranches.

When oil was discovered in South Fannett in 1927, the economy in the small unincorporated town boomed, but the population grew little.

Even the discovery of crude to the

northwest of Fannett in 1958 didn't cause a significant population spike.

As the public school system in Texas began changing to a more

statewide model, the Fannett Independent School District merged with that of a

neighboring small town to the southwest, Hampshire.

By the 2000s, Fannat's population grew very modestly, and the economy there remained

fueled by oil production, ranching, and rice farming.

Interestingly, as the popularity of Cajun food spread far beyond

Louisiana and Southeast Texas, rice farmers in Fannett began farming crawfish in their

...