Smith County Texas map
32.38° N · 95.27° W · County seat: Tyler · 949 sq mi · Central Time
Smith County grows roses. Its nurseries once supplied a large share of the field-grown rose bushes sold in the United States, and the municipal rose garden in Tyler — about 14 acres and more than 30,000 bushes — is the largest of its kind in the country. The county is also the commercial centre of East Texas, with 233,479 people, an interstate across the top and two ring roads around its seat.
The pin marks Tyler. I-20 crosses the top of the frame; the water at the bottom left is the northern arm of Lake Palestine, and the two smaller lakes east of the city are Lake Tyler and Lake Tyler East.
Where Smith County sits
Seven counties surround it. Wood County is north, Upshur County northeast, Gregg County east, Rusk County southeast, Cherokee County south, Henderson County southwest and Van Zandt County northwest.
Longview is 32 miles east by straight line, Nacogdoches 64 miles southeast and Lufkin 78 miles southeast. The Dallas suburbs begin about 80 miles northwest — Mesquite 82 miles, Garland 88 — and I-20 makes that a straightforward drive, which is why Tyler functions as a regional hospital, retail and university centre rather than a satellite of anywhere.
The county was created in July 1846 out of Nacogdoches County and named for James Smith, a general in the Texas Revolution. Tyler, the seat, took its name from John Tyler, the president who signed the resolution annexing Texas. The county's 2024 Census estimate is 249,091, up nearly 16,000 on 2020.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population in county |
|---|---|---|
| Tyler | City (seat) | 105,995 |
| Whitehouse | City | 8,265 |
| Lindale | City | 6,048 |
| Bullard (part) | Town | 3,545 |
| Hideaway | City | 3,202 |
| Troup (part) | City | 1,950 |
| Arp | City | 893 |
| Winona | Town | 622 |
| New Chapel Hill | City | 617 |
| Noonday | City | 610 |
| Overton (part) | City | 161 |
Bullard, Troup and Overton straddle county lines; the figures above count only the part inside Smith County. Overton is mostly in Rusk County.
Interstate, US routes and two loops
- Interstate 20 – crosses the northern third of the county east–west, passing Lindale, on the Dallas–Shreveport line. Tyler is about 10 miles south of it.
- US-69 – the north–south spine, entering from Lindale and Mineola in the north, running through the middle of Tyler as Broadway Avenue and continuing south toward Bullard and Jacksonville.
- US-271 – runs northeast out of Tyler toward Gladewater, Gilmer and Mount Pleasant.
- US-80 – clips the northeast corner between Mineola and Big Sandy, the old highway that I-20 replaced.
- SH-31 – the east–west route through Tyler linking Kilgore and Longview to the east with Athens and Corsicana to the west.
- SH-64 – a second east–west route, running from Van Zandt County through Tyler toward Chapel Hill and Kilgore.
- SH-110, SH-135 and SH-155 – the local spokes: SH-110 south toward Troup, SH-135 southeast toward Overton, and SH-155 northwest toward Big Sandy and southwest toward Frankston and Palestine.
- Loop 323 – the inner ring road around Tyler, a signalised arterial about 20 miles around, carrying most of the city's cross-town traffic.
- Loop 49 – the outer bypass, a tolled limited-access loop built in stages since the 2000s, running south and west of Tyler and connecting I-20 to US-69 and SH-155 without going through town.
Roses, lakes and the edge of an oil field
Rose growing arrived after the peach orchards around Tyler failed to disease in the early twentieth century, and by mid-century the nurseries here were shipping bushes nationwide. The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden opened in the 1950s on the west side of the city near the fairgrounds; the Texas Rose Festival, held each October since 1933, is built around it. Field production has shrunk since its peak, but the garden and the festival remain the county's best-known export.
Two lakes serve the county. Lake Tyler and Lake Tyler East, city-owned reservoirs on Prairie and Mud creeks about 12 miles southeast of downtown off FM-848, supply Tyler's water and carry most of the local boat traffic. Lake Palestine is far larger, impounded on the Neches River southwest of the county and shared with Henderson, Cherokee and Anderson counties; its northeastern arms reach into Smith County near Bullard and Flint. Tyler State Park sits north of the city off FM-14 near I-20, in pine forest around a small spring-fed lake.
The East Texas Oil Field, discovered in 1930 near Henderson and for years the largest field in the lower 48 states, runs north–south through Rusk, Gregg and Upshur counties. Its western edge crosses into Smith County around Arp, Troup and Overton, which is why those towns grew fast in the 1930s while the rest of the county stayed agricultural. Tyler took the field's money without sitting on top of it, and turned it into banks, hospitals and, later, the University of Texas at Tyler and Tyler Junior College.