Frank Zummo moved from Sicily to New Orleans at age 11. By 25, he had saved enough to buy Beaumont's city-run slaughterhouse. That decision is still feeding people in 40 states.

Zummo Meat Company traces back to 1908, when Frank Zummo purchased the Abattoir, the slaughterhouse the City of Beaumont itself used to own and operate. At the time, that was a normal arrangement, cities running their own slaughterhouses and supplying meat to local grocers. Zummo did all of it: slaughtered hogs for processed products like weiners and sausage, slaughtered cattle, and sold the beef to stores around the region.

The origin moment here was not glamorous. It was a young immigrant with meat market experience from New Orleans, buying a piece of municipal infrastructure most people would never think to buy, and turning it into a company.

The obstacle a business faces over 117 years is rarely just one thing, it is surviving four generations of a family agreeing to keep going. Research on family businesses shows the average one lasts 24 years, and fewer than 3 percent make it to a fourth generation at all. Zummo is one of only a handful of Beaumont businesses to clear that bar, alongside names like Broussard's Mortuary.

What the family knows now shows up in how plainly they describe their own longevity. Asked what advice they'd give other companies trying to grow in Southeast Texas, the family's answer wasn't about strategy or scale. It was about being good to your employees, good to your community, and consistent in what you provide.

Being in Beaumont is not incidental to this business, it is the whole premise. As one family member put it, the company is part of Beaumont, and Beaumont is part of the company. That is not a slogan. It is what four generations of not leaving looks like from the inside.

Zummo sausage and boudin are now sold in 40 states, still made by the family that bought a slaughterhouse from the city more than a century ago and decided not to stop.

How to support: Zummo Meat Company products are available at grocery stores throughout Beaumont and the surrounding region, and at zummo.com.

Resources: If your own business is trying to build something that outlasts you, the Greater Beaumont Chamber of Commerce and the Lamar University Small Business Development Center both offer free guidance, no matter what stage you're starting from.