Jasper County Texas map
30.75° N · 94.02° W · County seat: Jasper · 970 sq mi
Two big impoundments bracket Jasper County. Sam Rayburn Reservoir, the largest lake lying entirely within Texas, is dammed at the county's northwestern corner where the Angelina River leaves it; twenty-odd miles downstream the Neches is dammed again to make B.A. Steinhagen Lake, with Martin Dies Jr. State Park on its shores. Between them the county is timber, and the towns are Jasper and Kirbyville on US-96.
Jasper sits at the crossing of US-96 and US-190 in the southern half of the county. Sam Rayburn Reservoir fills the north, B.A. Steinhagen Lake the west, and Kirbyville is on US-96 toward the Newton and Orange county lines.
Where Jasper County is
Jasper County sits in deep East Texas about 40 miles short of the Louisiana line, 47 miles north of Beaumont and 58 miles southeast of Lufkin in a straight line. Seven counties surround it: San Augustine to the north, Sabine northeast, Newton east, Orange south, Hardin southwest, Tyler west and Angelina northwest.
It began as a Mexican municipality in 1834 and became one of the 23 original counties of the Republic of Texas, organized in 1837. It is named for William Jasper, the sergeant who became a Revolutionary War legend for retrieving the fallen flag under fire at Fort Sullivan in 1776 — the county next door is named for John Newton, a comrade of his, and the two names have travelled together across several states.
The Neches River forms the whole western boundary and the Sabine National Forest country lies to the northeast, so the county is bounded by water on one side and public timber on the other.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Jasper | City (county seat) | 6,875 |
| Kirbyville | City | 2,031 |
| Browndell | City | 160 |
Only three places in the county are incorporated, and together they hold under a third of its 32,980 people. Buna, Evadale, Bessmay and Roganville are unincorporated communities in the southern county; Browndell, near the Sam Rayburn shoreline, is a village of a few dozen households that kept its charter.
Roads
- US-96 – the north–south spine, from Kirbyville through Jasper and on north toward Pineland and San Augustine; south it runs to Silsbee and Beaumont.
- US-190 – east–west through Jasper, west across B.A. Steinhagen Lake toward Woodville and Livingston, east to Newton and the Sabine River crossing into Louisiana.
- US-69 – runs down the western side of the county past the Steinhagen lake country, north toward Lufkin and south to Beaumont.
- SH-63 – northeast from Jasper toward Burkeville and the Louisiana line at Burr Ferry.
- SH-62 – south from Kirbyville toward Buna and Mauriceville.
There is no interstate in the county and no four-lane freeway; US-96 and US-190 carry the through traffic.
Sam Rayburn, Steinhagen and the state park
Sam Rayburn Reservoir was completed in 1965 on the Angelina River and named for the Bonham congressman who was Speaker of the U.S. House for seventeen years. It covers more surface area than any other reservoir wholly inside Texas, spreading north and west into Angelina, Nacogdoches, San Augustine and Sabine counties, and its dam is in northwestern Jasper County. Much of its shoreline is Angelina National Forest land, so campgrounds and boat ramps sit on public ground rather than behind subdivisions. Largemouth bass tournaments are the lake's main business.
Downstream, Town Bluff Dam on the Neches — long known locally as Dam B — makes B.A. Steinhagen Lake, a shallower, more timbered impoundment on the Jasper–Tyler county line. Martin Dies Jr. State Park occupies three units along it just off US-190 west of Jasper, with camping, cypress sloughs and paddling trails through flooded bottomland. The park is named for the East Texas congressman who chaired the House committee on un-American activities in the 1930s and 1940s.
Timber underlies everything else. Pine plantations, sawmills and paper mill work in the surrounding counties employ a large share of the county, and the two lakes plus the national forests bring the visitor traffic that keeps the motels and bait shops in Jasper open.