Nacogdoches, Texas map
31.60° N · 94.66° W · Nacogdoches County seat · elev. ~285 ft · Central Time
Nacogdoches calls itself the oldest town in Texas, and the claim rests on continuous settlement rather than a single founding: a Spanish mission stood here in 1716, and Antonio Gil Y'Barbo brought settlers back to the site in 1779, laying out the streets around what is now the downtown plaza. The town sits on the red-clay hills of the Piney Woods between two creeks, La Nana and Banita.
Centered on downtown. Loop 224 rings the city; the Stephen F. Austin campus is the block of green immediately north of the center.
Where Nacogdoches is in Texas
The town is deep in East Texas, 20 miles north of Lufkin and about 60 miles south of Longview, with the Louisiana line roughly 60 miles east. US-59 runs north–south through it and is being rebuilt in stages as Interstate 69; that route is the reason Nacogdoches is 140 miles from Houston by road and still functions as a stop on the way there. The Angelina River forms the southern boundary of Nacogdoches County and the Attoyac Bayou the eastern; both drain into Sam Rayburn Reservoir.
Nacogdoches County covers 981 square miles and holds about 65,000 people, half of them in the city. The neighboring counties are Rusk to the north, Shelby to the northeast, San Augustine to the southeast, Angelina to the south and Cherokee to the west.
El Camino Real and the Old Stone Fort
The Spanish road from the Rio Grande to the Louisiana missions — El Camino Real de los Tejas — ran through this spot, and SH-21 follows a great deal of its route today, southwest toward Crockett and Bryan and northeast toward San Augustine and the Sabine. The road is why the site mattered: it was the last Texas town before Spanish, then Mexican, territory ended at the Sabine River.
The Old Stone Fort on the university campus is a 1936 reconstruction, built from the stones of Y'Barbo's late-1700s trading house that had stood downtown until 1902. It is now a free museum. Stephen F. Austin State University opened in 1923 as a teachers' college on land north of the plaza and joined the University of Texas System in 2023; its azalea gardens and arboretum on the west side of campus are open year-round.
Highways
- US-59 / I-69 – north to Carthage and Texarkana; south to Lufkin, Livingston and Houston.
- US-259 – northwest to Henderson, Kilgore and Longview.
- SH-21 – northeast to San Augustine and the Sabine; southwest to Alto, Crockett and the Brazos Valley.
- SH-7 – crosses the county east–west, toward Center and the Louisiana line in one direction and Crockett in the other.
- SH-204 – northeast toward Chireno and the Attoyac bottoms.
- Loop 224 – the four-lane ring road that carries US-59 and US-259 around the built-up area.
Getting around town
The street plan is easier to read once you know that the old highway and the new one are different roads. US-59 Business enters from the south as South Street, becomes North Street past the plaza, and carries the downtown traffic; the through route, US-59 proper, swings around the east side on Loop 224. Main Street crosses them east–west and climbs the hill from La Nana Creek to the courthouse. University Drive and North Street bracket the Stephen F. Austin campus.
Nacogdoches keeps several blocks of the original brick paving downtown, and the historic district is compact enough to walk: the plaza, the Sterne-Hoya House of 1830, the Durst-Taylor house and the Fredonia Hotel are within a few streets of each other. La Nana Creek Trail follows the creek south from campus for about three miles.
Areas and neighborhoods
| Area | What's there |
|---|---|
| Downtown / historic district | Brick streets, the plaza, Sterne-Hoya House, the county courthouse, Fredonia Hotel |
| SFA campus | Stephen F. Austin State University, the Old Stone Fort museum, Homer Bryce Stadium |
| North Street | The Business US-59 commercial strip running north from downtown |
| SFA Gardens | Ruby M. Mize Azalea Garden and the Pineywoods Native Plant Center west of campus |
| Loop 224 corridor | Chain retail, the hospital and the highway motels on the south and east arcs |
| Appleby | Small incorporated town just north on US-59 |
| Lake Nacogdoches | City water supply about 10 miles west on FM-225, with a public boat ramp |
| Garrison and Cushing | Rural county towns northeast and northwest on US-59 and SH-204 |
Distances from Nacogdoches
| City | Road miles | Route |
|---|---|---|
| Lufkin | 20 | US-59 S |
| Longview | 65 | US-259 N |
| Tyler | 70 | US-259 N / SH-64 W |
| Houston | 140 | US-59 S |
| Beaumont | 120 | US-59 S / US-69 S |
| College Station | 120 | SH-21 SW |
| Texarkana | 150 | US-59 N |
The I-69 signs along US-59 mark completed freeway segments only; between towns the road is still a four-lane divided highway with cross traffic.