Rusk County Texas map
32.11° N · 94.76° W · County seat: Henderson · 938 sq mi
On 3 October 1930 a worn-out rig on the Daisy Bradford lease south of Henderson brought in oil from the Woodbine sand and opened the East Texas Oil Field, the largest field ever found in the lower 48 states. Rusk County was the discovery ground, and pumpjacks, tank batteries and gas plants still sit between the pastures.
Henderson sits where US-79, US-259 and SH-64 meet. Kilgore and Overton are on the northern edge, Tatum east near Martin Lake, and Mount Enterprise south on US-259.
Where Rusk County is
Rusk County lies in the middle of East Texas, 27 miles south of Longview, 36 miles southeast of Tyler and 35 miles north of Nacogdoches in a straight line. Seven counties touch it: Gregg to the north, Harrison northeast, Panola east, Shelby southeast, Nacogdoches south, Cherokee southwest and Smith northwest.
It was created by the Republic of Texas in 1843 out of Nacogdoches County and named for Thomas Jefferson Rusk, a general at San Jacinto, the Republic's secretary of war and later one of the first two U.S. senators from Texas. Gregg County was cut out of its northern end in 1873, which is why Kilgore now straddles the line.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Henderson | City (county seat) | 13,275 |
| Kilgore (part) | City | 3,277 |
| Overton (part) | City | 2,115 |
| Tatum (part) | City | 1,164 |
| New London | City | 963 |
| Mount Enterprise | City | 505 |
| Reklaw (part) | City | 155 |
| Easton (part) | City | 29 |
Five of the eight incorporated places straddle a county line, and the figures above count only the part inside Rusk. Kilgore is mostly in Gregg County, Overton reaches into Smith, Tatum into Panola and Reklaw into Cherokee. Reklaw is Walker spelled backwards, after an early landowner.
Roads
- US-79 – the main diagonal, northeast through Henderson toward Carthage and the Louisiana line, southwest toward Palestine.
- US-259 – north–south through Henderson, north to Kilgore and Longview, south to Mount Enterprise and on toward Nacogdoches.
- US-84 – crosses the southern county through Mount Enterprise, west to Rusk and east toward Joaquin.
- SH-64 – east–west through Henderson, west to Tyler, east toward Marshall.
- SH-43 – northeast from Henderson past Tatum and Martin Lake.
- SH-42 and SH-135 – short north–south routes linking Henderson, New London, Overton and Kilgore through the middle of the old oil field.
No interstate crosses the county. I-20 runs about 15 miles north through Gregg and Harrison counties.
Oil, gas and lignite
Columbus Marion "Dad" Joiner's Daisy Bradford No. 3 came in near Turnertown in October 1930 and, within a year, the field it opened was proved to run more than 40 miles north through Gregg and into Smith and Upshur counties. Thousands of wells went down on small leases, the price of oil collapsed, and Texas martial law and the first serious statewide production controls followed. Henderson grew from a courthouse town to an oil-supply town in a matter of months, and Rusk County still produces both oil and gas.
On 18 March 1937 an accumulation of natural gas under the New London school exploded and killed close to 300 students and teachers. It remains one of the worst school disasters in United States history, and it is the reason natural gas is odorized: the Texas Legislature required an odorant be added to gas so that a leak can be smelled, and the practice spread from there. A cenotaph stands at the crossroads in New London opposite the museum.
The county's other energy business is lignite. The Martin Lake plant east of Henderson near Tatum burns lignite coal in three units and is one of the largest power stations in Texas; its cooling reservoir, Martin Lake, and the surface mines that fed it reshaped several thousand acres of the eastern county. Mined-out ground has been reclaimed as pasture and wildlife management land.