Troup, Texas

The Handbook of Texas says settlers, mostly from Virginia, reached the area as early as 1848. The town itself came with the Houston and Great Northern Railroad. Troup was platted in 1872 at the point where the line split toward Tyler and toward Longview, and Dr. E. M. Hanna built the first hotel.

The post office opened on January 8, 1873, under the name Zavala. The name changed to Troup in 1877. By 1892 the town had about 600 residents, eight general stores and four churches. By 1914 it had a bank, a telephone exchange, cotton gins and a weekly newspaper.

The East Texas oil boom of the 1930s made Troup a rail shipping point. The Handbook puts the population at a peak of 3,000 in 1939. In 1948 Troup had 1,526 residents and was the second-largest town in Smith County.

Downtown Troup is a historic district. The Troup Community Development Corporation offers grants to help downtown businesses meet the city's Historic District sign ordinance, and it runs free public Wi-Fi downtown.

The city lists five parks:

• Alton Ashby Park
• Brandon Street Park
• Patriot Park
• Short Street Park
• Joe Layne Family Splash Pad

The parks are open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. The splash pad opens at 9 a.m. and closes for the season when the weather turns cool.

The city's Christmas Parade is set for Thursday, December 10, 2026. The Community Development Corporation also hosts Holiday in the Country in downtown Troup. In 2023, KETK reported it on November 17 from 4 to 8 p.m.

The Cameron-J. Jarvis Troup Municipal Library is at 102 S. Georgia St. City Hall is at 106 E. Duval.

Troup ISD runs three campuses: Troup Elementary, Troup Middle and Troup High School. The high school's teams are the Tigers, and they compete in UIL Class 3A. In 1992 the Tigers boys' basketball team went 35–1 and won the UIL Class 2A state championship, which the Texas House honored in a resolution.

Troup is also the hometown of Byron Payton. He was a 16-year-old light middleweight who had won Junior Olympics and Texas State Golden Gloves titles. He died on March 14, 1980, in the plane crash near Warsaw, Poland, that killed members of the U.S. amateur boxing team. Texas Co-op Power reports that the town built the Byron Payton Gymnasium in his memory, and the Troup Boxing Club trains there.

• Tyler: about 19 road miles, roughly 30 minutes.
• Jacksonville: about 17 road miles, under half an hour.
• Arp: three miles north, per the Handbook of Texas.
• Dallas–Fort Worth: about 120 miles, per the city. The city puts Shreveport about 100 miles away and Houston about 190.

Lake Tyler East is about 7 miles north of town in a straight line. Texas Parks and Wildlife says the Lake Tyler reservoirs are southeast of Tyler off Texas 64. The east basin, 2,276 acres, was impounded in 1966, and the west basin, 2,224 acres, in 1949. TPWD rates largemouth bass and sunfish fishing there as excellent.