America's Most Polluted Refinery City: The Untold Story of Port Arthur, Texas

Port Arthur, Texas. Most Americans have never heard of it. But for over a century, this small city on the Gulf Coast refined more crude oil than anywhere else on Earth — fueling two World Wars, building the American suburb, and powering the economy that the rest of the country took for granted. This is the story of how America's refinery capital choked on its own success. From the 1901 Spindletop blowout that changed the world overnight, to the rise of Gulf Oil and Texaco, to the brutal racial hierarchy that forced Black workers into the most dangerous jobs for half the pay — Port Arthur's history is a story of industrial arrogance at its most complete and most catastrophic. Today, Port Arthur's refineries are larger than ever. Saudi Aramco processes over 600,000 barrels of crude there every single day. And the city itself is one of the poorest, most polluted places in the United States — with cancer rates, asthma hospitalizations, and benzene concentrations that would be a national emergency if they were happening somewhere with more political power. This documentary asks the question America has never wanted to answer: what do we owe the places we built our prosperity on top of? #PortArthurTexas #OilHistory #EnvironmentalJustice #DocumentaryFilm #AmericanHistory