The History of Overton, Texas

Overton was laid out in 1873 at a site planned to be the junction of two railroad lines. It was named for Frank Overton, an early settler who owned land in the area and donated part of it for the townsite. The Henderson and Overton Branch Railroad was chartered in 1874 to run sixteen miles from a connection with the International and Great Northern Railroad at Overton to Henderson, opening in 1877.

The railroad made Overton a magnet. When the line bypassed the older communities of Rocky Mount, Belleview, and Jamestown, the citizens of those towns simply moved to the rail line at Overton. By 1888 a local newspaper boasted that the town had '15 or more good businesses, two large hotels, numerous buildings, a fine chartered school, excellent society, pure air, good water,' and a population of over 500.

For its first decades Overton was primarily a farming center, serving the cotton and crops of the surrounding country. That changed dramatically around 1930, when oil was discovered in the area — and Overton played a direct role in the discovery. Local residents helped raise the funds to finance the drilling of wildcatter C. M. 'Dad' Joiner's third well, the gamble that would open the vast East Texas Oil Field.

That field proved to be one of the largest in the world, and the boom transformed Overton overnight. The town's population shot up from a few hundred to about 3,000 by 1933 and 4,500 by 1936, as oil workers, businesses, and money poured in. A quiet farm town had become a bustling oil boomtown.

The oil boom left a permanent mark on Overton. Though the frenzied boom years eventually settled, the town remained a community shaped by both its railroad origins and its oil heritage — two of the defining stories of East Texas history.

Today Overton is a small town on the Rusk and Smith county line, southeast of Tyler and near Henderson and Kilgore, anchored by its 'Mustang' schools and its proud history. It sits in the heart of oil country, near the museums and landmarks that tell the story of the East Texas Oil Field — a boom that Overton's own citizens helped set in motion.