Franklin County Texas map
33.18° N · 95.22° W · County seat: Mount Vernon · 294 sq mi
Franklin County is one of the smallest counties in Texas by both land area and population: 294 square miles and 10,359 people in 2020. Interstate 30 crosses the northern half, and the county's best-known feature is Lake Cypress Springs, a clear-water reservoir built by the county's own water district.
Centered on Franklin County. The pin marks Mount Vernon, on I-30 about halfway between Sulphur Springs and Mount Pleasant.
Where Franklin County is
The county sits in the northeast corner of the state, on the timbered edge where the Blackland Prairie gives way to the pines and hardwoods of East Texas. It is roughly a rectangle 20 miles across, wedged between Hopkins County on the west and Titus County on the east, the county it was cut out of in 1875.
Going clockwise from the top: Red River County is north, Titus is east, Camp County is southeast, Wood County is south, Hopkins is west and Delta County is northwest. The nearest city with its own page here is Paris, about 39 miles northwest; Tyler lies 57 miles south and Texarkana 71 miles northeast. Only 10 of the county's 294 square miles are water.
The county carries the name of Benjamin Cromwell Franklin, a district judge under the Republic of Texas and later a state senator. It belongs to the 1st congressional district and keeps Central Time.
Towns
Franklin County has just two incorporated places, and one of them is mostly in the next county.
| Place | Type | 2020 population in county |
|---|---|---|
| Mount Vernon (county seat) | Town | 2,492 |
| Winnsboro (part) | City | 768 |
Winnsboro straddles the Franklin–Wood county line; most of the city is in Wood County.
Mount Vernon keeps a courthouse square at the crossing of SH-37 and SH-11, a mile or so south of the interstate. The town was the boyhood home of Don Meredith, the Dallas Cowboys quarterback who later called games on Monday Night Football.
Roads
- Interstate 30 – crosses the county east–west, entering from Hopkins County near Saltillo and leaving toward Mount Pleasant. It is the Dallas–Texarkana–Little Rock route.
- U.S. 67 – the older highway that I-30 replaced, still signed alongside it through Mount Vernon.
- U.S. 271 – runs along the eastern side between Mount Pleasant and Paris.
- SH-37 – starts at Mount Vernon and runs north through the timber toward Clarksville in Red River County.
- SH-11 – crosses the southern half between Sulphur Springs and Winnsboro.
Lake Cypress Springs
The reservoir fills a bend of Big Cypress Creek in the southeastern part of the county. It is unusual in Texas for being built, owned and run by a single county's water district rather than a river authority or a city, and the shoreline is largely private with a handful of county-run parks and boat ramps. The water is clearer than most North Texas lakes because the creek drains sandy timber country rather than black clay farmland, which is why the lake draws anglers and scuba divers from the Metroplex.
Big Cypress Creek continues east out of the county into Lake Bob Sandlin, and from there through Titus and Camp counties toward the Cypress Basin and Caddo Lake. The chain of reservoirs makes the eastern side of the county a weekend destination out of proportion to its population.