A Beaumont resident — clearly unimpressed with the unexpected political endorsements — brought her concerns before the Beaumont City Council.
BEAUMONT, Texas — For months now, an anonymous artist —or maybe just a really passionate power washer—has been pressure-washing President Donald Trump’s name into the concrete slopes of highway and interstate underpasses around Beaumont.
Yes, you read that right. Not painting. Not spraying. Pressure-washing.
It’s a rough version of an unconventional form of street art, known as “reverse graffiti.” It involves blasting away layers of grime to reveal a cleaner surface. And whoever is behind it has been quite busy, leaving behind massive “TRUMP” markings in multiple locations across the city, including Hwy 69 and I-10, where one spot features not just one, but three giant “TRUMP” names stacked like a political chant.
Other sightings of the prolific “graffiti,” which has been spotted all over town, have been reported at Hwy 69 and Dowlen Road, and another underpass near downtown where I-10 meets the Neches River.
It remains a mystery who is behind these presidential power-washings or how they’ve managed to pull it off—possibly darting across busy roads with a portable pressure washer in hand like a vigilante janitor.
Beaumont City Council wades into the clean-up
In January, one Beaumont resident—clearly unimpressed with the unexpected political endorsements—brought her concerns before the Beaumont City Council.
“I just don’t think anyone’s name should be on it, not even mine,” she said. “I just wanted someone to get that taken care of.”
Councilman Charles Durio acknowledged the issue, stating, “Looks like someone took a pressure washer and pressure-washed his name.”
Councilman A.J. Turner agreed it needed to be addressed. “You have a president’s name on the freeway. I think we need to set up with TxDOT—I think that’s very necessary, because she is not the first one to bring that up.”
Fast forward to this week, and TxDOT has taken action to clean up the “graffiti” — ironic, considering the mystery cleaner was, technically, making things a little cleaner.
TxDOT fights clean with clean
During a routine update at this week’s City Council meeting, TxDOT officials confirmed they were already on the case.
“We are going to pressure wash—we started this week,” said TxDOT Beaumont Area Engineer David Collins. “I told our maintenance section to start at Dowlen Road and work their way south to 11th Street and I-10. At first, we were just removing the wording itself, but now we want to clean that whole area so they can’t do any more graffiti in that area.”
That’s right—the solution to pressure-washed graffiti? More pressure washing.
Collins admitted the unknown artist had unintentionally done a bit of their work for them. “They were actually cleaning the riprap, as we call it.”
Still, TxDOT encouraged citizens to report any similar instances so they could respond quickly.
Councilman says “It just needs to be cleaned up”
When asked about the graffiti, Councilman Turner stopped short of actually calling it “graffiti” but emphasized the goal was to keep residents happy.
“It’s kind of hard to describe what I would call it,” he said. “But it just needs to be cleaned up to an area where citizens are comfortable and not coming to Council to ask us to take care of it.”
Soon, it seems Beaumont’s highways will be Trump-free—at least until the mystery power washer strikes again.
This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
