Many of the stately homes, commercial buildings, and schools in the area, including the Bee County Courthouse, were designed by architect William Charles Stephenson, who came to Beeville in 1908 from Buffalo, New York.

[8] The original and official site on the Poesta River was first settled by the Burke, Carroll, and Heffernan families in the 1830s.

Present-day Beeville was established on 150 acres (61 ha) of land donated by Ann Burke in May 1859, after the Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States.

[10] In September 1942, Alfred Irving, who is believed to be one of the final chattel slaves in the United States, was freed at a farm near Beeville.

Alex L. Skrobarcek and his daughter, Susie, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Laredo, Texas on November 9, 1942.

[11][12][13][14] The pair were found guilty in Federal court in Corpus Christi, Texas on Thursday, March 18, 1943.

Beeville was served by Trans-Texas Airways during the 1950s; it operated scheduled passenger flights with Douglas DC-3 propeller airliners from Chase Field with service to Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Harlingen, Houston, San Antonio, and other destinations in Texas.

In 1967, the town was inundated by 30 inches (760 mm) of rain during Hurricane Beulah.The city's terrain ranges from flat to gently rolling slopes, set in the South Texas Brush Country.

[17] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.1 square miles (16 km2), all land.

The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and generally mild to cool winters.

Hallinan wrote that Beeville was attempting to be "a prison hub, becoming roughly what Pittsburgh is to steel or Detroit is to cars".

Sports include golf, basketball, baseball, softball, powerlifting, soccer, tennis, track, wrestling, and cheerleading.