The History of Grapeland, Texas

In the early decades of Houston County, the Grapeland area was a crossroads on the road from Crockett to Palestine, and the home of an early resident near the intersection served as a mail drop for settlers scattered across the surrounding sand flats. The wild grapes that flourished in the region's sandy soil gave the place its first name: Grapevine.

When residents applied for a post office in 1873, the name was changed to Grapeland — close to the old name, but distinct. The community was still small and rural, a farming locale in the wooded, sandy country of northern Houston County, waiting on the railroad that would turn a crossroads into a town.

The railroad made Grapeland a town. In 1872 the Houston and Great Northern Railroad completed its line through the area and turned over a 640-acre tract to the New York and Texas Land Company to be developed as a townsite. The community grew quickly as a railroad depot and a commercial center for the local cotton producers, who could now ship their crop to wider markets.

By the first decade of the twentieth century Grapeland had grown into a busy trade center — five general stores, two cotton gins, several mills, a hotel, a newspaper, and various other enterprises served the surrounding farm country. King Cotton ruled the sand flats, and Grapeland was its market town.

Disaster tested the young town in 1913, when a fire razed fifteen businesses in downtown Grapeland. Rather than fade, the town promptly rebuilt — this time in brick — and the brick storefronts of that rebuilding still give downtown its character. Grapeland has been incorporated since 1924.

After World War II the local economy shifted: peanuts replaced cotton as the leading crop in the sandy soil, oil and gas production added to the mix, and steel fabrication became a local industry. The town embraced its agricultural roots, launching an annual Peanut Festival in 1945 and earning the nickname 'Watermelon Capital of East Texas.' Today Grapeland is a quiet farming town of around 1,500, home of the Grapeland Sandies and a gateway to Salmon Lake Park and the Davy Crockett National Forest.