The History of Wake Village, Texas

Wake Village was founded in 1944, at the height of World War II, to provide housing for the workers at two enormous nearby defense installations: the Red River Army Depot and the Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant. As those plants ramped up to supply the war, thousands of workers needed homes, and a new community rose to meet that need on the edge of Texarkana in Bowie County.

The town took its name from Wake Island, the Pacific atoll whose defense in 1941 became an early symbol of American resolve in the war. From its very first day, Wake Village was a community defined by the wartime moment that created it.

Wake Village's wartime roots are still visible in its layout. The sections where the original post-war homes stand are named for places tied to World War II — Manila, Guam, Singapore, Arizona, Burma Victory, and more. Decades later, those names remain a quiet, everyday memorial to the global conflict that gave the town its start.

Few towns wear their history so plainly. To drive through the older neighborhoods of Wake Village is to read a roll call of the war that built it — a unique character that sets the community apart from its neighbors.

After the war, Wake Village endured and grew. Its population passed 1,000 in the early 1950s, reached about 4,400 by the early 1990s, and continued climbing to 5,129 at the 2000 census and 5,945 by 2020. What began as temporary war-worker housing became a permanent, family-oriented suburb of Texarkana.

Today Wake Village is part of the Texarkana metropolitan area — an affordable, quiet residential community with deep roots in the defense industry that still anchors the regional economy. Its origins may lie in a global war, but its present is all about hometown living in the far northeast corner of Texas.