Upshur County Texas map
32.74° N · 94.94° W · County seat: Gilmer · 593 sq mi
Once a year the courthouse square in Gilmer fills up for the East Texas Yamboree, a sweet-potato festival that has run every October since 1935 and is the thing most Texans know Upshur County for. The rest of the year this is quiet timber and pasture country between Tyler and the Louisiana line, with no interstate and no city over 5,000 people.
Gilmer sits in the middle of the county where US-271 and SH-155 cross. Big Sandy and Gladewater are on US-80 along the southern edge; Ore City is on US-259 in the northeast.
Where Upshur County is
Upshur County sits in the northeastern corner of Texas, about 20 miles northwest of Longview and 34 miles northeast of Tyler in a straight line. Seven counties touch it: Camp to the north, Morris northeast, Marion east, Harrison southeast, Gregg south, Smith southwest and Wood west.
The county was created in 1846, the year Texas joined the Union, out of the western part of Harrison County. It is named for Abel Parker Upshur, the Virginian who served as United States secretary of state in 1843 and 1844 and who was killed when a naval gun burst aboard the USS Princeton in February 1844.
The land is rolling and wooded, drained north toward Big Cypress Bayou and south toward the Sabine River, which runs just off the southern county line. Ten of the county's 593 square miles are water — small creek reservoirs rather than one big lake.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Gilmer | City (county seat) | 4,838 |
| Gladewater (part) | City | 2,359 |
| Big Sandy | Town | 1,228 |
| Ore City | City | 1,108 |
| East Mountain (part) | City | 902 |
| Union Grove | City | 445 |
| Warren City (part) | City | 8 |
Gladewater, East Mountain and Warren City all straddle the line into Gregg County, and the figures above count only the part inside Upshur. Warren City is the extreme case: eight of its residents were on the Upshur side in 2020. Gladewater came up fast in 1931 as a drilling town on the western end of the East Texas Oil Field and today trades on antique shops along US-80. Big Sandy and Ore City are small trade towns on the through routes; Union Grove and Pritchett are crossroads communities with a school and a church.
Roads
- US-271 – the main diagonal, southwest to Tyler and northeast through Gilmer toward Pittsburg and Mount Pleasant.
- US-259 – north–south through the eastern county past Ore City, south to Longview and north toward Daingerfield.
- US-80 – the old east–west highway across the southern edge through Big Sandy and Gladewater, west to Mineola and east to Longview.
- SH-155 – runs the length of the county through Gilmer and Ore City, south to Tyler.
- SH-154 – the east–west route through Gilmer, west to Quitman in Wood County.
- SH-300 – the direct road between Gilmer and Longview.
There is no interstate in Upshur County. The nearest is I-20, about 15 miles south through Gregg County.
The Yamboree and Lake Gilmer
The East Texas Yamboree started in 1935 as a way to advertise the sweet potato crop and has been held in Gilmer every October since, wartime years aside. It takes over the square and the county fairgrounds for several days with a parade, a fiddlers' contest, a queen's coronation, a livestock show and a tent full of judged yams. For a county of 40,000 people it draws crowds in the tens of thousands, and the schools close for it.
Lake Gilmer, on Kelsey Creek northwest of town, is the city's water supply and the county's main open water. It was built with standing timber left in place, which suits crappie and bass anglers and rules out fast boating over much of the surface. Elsewhere the county's water is farm ponds and creek bottoms; the big reservoirs of this corner of Texas — Lake o' the Pines and Lake Fork — sit just over the line in neighbouring counties.
Timber, poultry and cattle carry the rural economy, and a good share of working residents drive to jobs in Longview or Tyler. The county is in the 1st congressional district and on Central Time.