The Bevil Meeting Room was made possible by a $40,000.00 gift from Mr. And Mrs. Clyde V. McKee, Jr. of Orange, Texas. Mrs. McKee is the former Mary Louise Bevil, daughter of the late Dr. Cooper Pope Bevil and Vada Kate Bemus Bevil. The room is given by the McKees to honor the memory of Mrs. McKee’s grandparents, John Randolph Bevil and Martha Adeline Hart Bevil and the memory of the Bevil children, Epyse Elvina Bevil Fones, Maude Adeline Bevil Black, Dr. John Richard Bevil, Dr. Cooper Pope Bevil, Etoile Bevil, Judge Andrew Leak Bevil, Constance Bevil McElroy and Dr. Frank Bevil Hart.

John Randolph Bevil was the grandson and namesake of John Bevil, who in 1824 established the first Anglo-American settlement in Southeast Texas near what is now Jasper. John Randolph Bevil was an early-day surveyor who often followed the trails his pioneer grandfather blazed. In 1872, 17-year-old John Randolph Bevil eloped with Martha Adeline Hart, also 17, riding on horseback, under the noses of her disapproving brothers. Their union endured for sixty-eight years until Mrs. Bevil’s death. The Bevils moved to Kountze on Christmas day 1884, and with their eight sons and daughters were a vital force personally and professionally in all of Southeast Texas.