This line was built in 1896 by the Gulf Interstate of Texas Railroad and ran from Beaumont to Port Bolivar on the tip of the Bolivar Peninsula and opposite Galveston on the inlet of Galveston Bay. The Beaumont, Wharf and Terminal Company built another 3 miles of track that connected to this line in 1898. The G&I was soon leased by the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway (itself a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway) in 1914, while the BW&T trackage was officially merged into the line in 1957.
The portion of the line between Stowell and High Island was operated for a short while by the Houston and Gulf Coast Railroad, the railroad subsidiary of the Southeastern International Corporation.
The line running into Port Bolivar proper was abandoned before 1948 (as it does not show up on a railroad map from that timeframe), with another portion of the line abandoned in 1967. Abandonment of the line between Stowell and High Island came in 1995; the line was further cut back to Fannett in 2001.