Spindletop Center is a community mental health and intellectual and developmental disabilities center located in Southeast Texas. It provides a variety of behavioral health care services to people with mental illness, intellectual and developmental disabilities and chemical dependency. Spindletop Center was formed September 1, 2000 when Beaumont State Center and Life Resource joined forces. The center provides services in Jefferson, Orange, Hardin and Chambers counties and serves approximately 8,000 consumers a year. The center employs more than 400 full-time staff and is governed by a nine-member board of trustees appointed by the county commissioners courts in the four-county area. The center is named after the Spindletop oil gusher that changed the world. In 1901 a 100-foot drilling derrick named Spindletop produced a roaring gusher of black crude oil, coating the surrounding landscape with a black, sticky, goo. The first major oil discovery in the United States, the Spindletop gusher marked the beginning of the American oil industry. Just as the Spindletop oil discovery ushered in a new age for America and Southeast Texas, Spindletop Center ushered in a new age in providing mental health, intellectual and developmental disabilities, developmental disability and chemical dependency services in Southeast Texas. The Center is licensed by the Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) to provide chemical dependency treatment services and is also contracted by HHSC to deliver mental health services.