Houston County Texas map
31.32° N · 95.42° W · County seat: Crockett · 1,237 sq mi
Houston County came first. The Congress of the Republic of Texas created it in 1837, before any other, and named it for the man who was then president — Sam Houston. It is also where the Spanish first came into East Texas: El Camino Real crossed the county's northeast corner, and the site of the first mission in the province is kept as a state park at Weches. Nearly a fifth of the county is now the Davy Crockett National Forest.
Crockett sits at the crossing of US-287 and SH-7 near the middle. The national forest fills the eastern third toward the Neches River; the Trinity River is the western boundary.
Where Houston County is
The county lies between two rivers: the Trinity along its western and southwestern line and the Neches along its eastern one, with about 30 miles of upland pine and pasture in between. Clockwise from the north its seven neighbours are Anderson County, Cherokee County northeast, Angelina County east, Trinity County southeast, Walker County south, Madison County southwest and Leon County west.
Crockett is 41 miles west of Lufkin on SH-7, 49 miles southwest of Nacogdoches, and about 72 miles northeast of College Station on SH-21 and SH-19. Houston is roughly 115 road miles south by way of SH-19 and I-45. No interstate touches the county; US-287 is the through route, running northwest to Palestine and southeast toward Corrigan and Beaumont.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | Population (2020) |
|---|---|---|
| Crockett (county seat) | City | 6,384 |
| Grapeland | City | 1,465 |
| Lovelady | City | 572 |
| Kennard | City | 272 |
| Latexo | City | 237 |
Four of the five sit on US-287 in a line: Grapeland at the north end, Latexo, Crockett, then Lovelady to the southeast. Kennard is the exception, 17 miles east of Crockett on SH-7 at the edge of the national forest, a town that grew around a sawmill. Weches, Ratcliff and Porter Springs are unincorporated communities.
Roads
- US-287 – the diagonal main route across the county, from Palestine through Grapeland, Latexo, Crockett and Lovelady toward Groveton and Corrigan.
- SH-7 – the east–west route through Crockett, east through Kennard and the forest to the Neches crossing and on to Lufkin, west toward Centerville and I-45.
- SH-21 – El Camino Real, crossing the northeast corner past Weches between Crockett and Alto.
- SH-19 – southwest out of Crockett toward Madisonville and Huntsville.
- Loop 304 – the ring road around Crockett that carries US-287 and SH-7 traffic past the square.
Davy Crockett National Forest
The Davy Crockett National Forest covers roughly 160,000 acres of the county's eastern side, most of it between SH-7 and the Neches River. Its centre is the Ratcliff Lake Recreation Area on SH-7 east of Kennard, a small lake made from an old sawmill pond with a campground and swimming area. From there the Four C National Recreation Trail runs about 20 miles north to the Neches Bluff overlook — the name comes from the Central Coal and Coke Company, whose mill worked this timber in the early 1900s and cut most of the original forest that the federal government later bought back. The Big Slough Wilderness at the north end of the trail is a bottomland area of sloughs and hardwood along the river.
Mission Tejas and the Camino Real
Mission San Francisco de los Tejas was founded in 1690 near a Caddo village in what is now northeastern Houston County — the first Spanish mission in East Texas, abandoned within a few years. Mission Tejas State Park at Weches, on SH-21, marks the general site with a log chapel that the Civilian Conservation Corps built in the 1930s as a commemoration rather than a reconstruction. The park also holds the Rice Family Home, a mid-1800s log house moved there from a few miles away, which stood on the Camino Real when it was still the road between San Antonio and Nacogdoches.
Crockett itself is named for David Crockett, who according to local tradition camped at a spring on the townsite in early 1836 on his way to the Alamo. The county courthouse square is the centre of a town that has held the same role since 1837, and Crockett still holds its World Champion Fiddlers Festival on the square each June.