The History of Tool, Texas

The Tool area was settled mostly by farmers beginning in 1835 — before Texas won its independence — including early settler William Avant, who moved to the area that year. The little farming community that grew up here was, by local tradition, once known by the earthy name 'Hog Fork,' a nod to the rural, agricultural character of the frontier settlement.

For decades the community remained a small farming locale in northwestern Henderson County, its life tied to the land. A post office operated under the name Tool from 1901 to 1911, and tradition holds the town took the name of George Tool, who opened its first store in 1905, though post office records show no name other than Tool.

Through the first half of the 20th century, Tool stayed a small rural community, its population small (about 100 in 1945, just forty by 1950) as the surrounding countryside continued its farming ways. Like much of inland Henderson County, it was off the main routes and out of the spotlight, a quiet place of farms and families.

That slow, steady character would hold until the 1960s, when a massive engineering project just to the east would reshape the entire area — and Tool's future along with it.

Everything changed with the completion of Cedar Creek Reservoir in 1965. The new lake — one of the largest in Texas — drew people to its shores for waterfront homes, weekend getaways, and recreation, and Tool, sitting on the western side, grew rapidly as a result.

The town's population climbed steadily in the decades that followed — to about 1,464 by 1980, 1,712 by 1990, and 2,275 by 2000 — as the lake turned the old farm community into a residential lake town. Today Tool is a quiet, growing community on the west shore of Cedar Creek Lake, a few miles south of the lake's commercial hub at Gun Barrel City, blending its frontier roots with its modern life by the water.