- Home
- Our History
Our History
Mission Statement
Living, Working, and Serving Together
To Make Winnsboro the Most Welcoming Place for Visitors, Businesses, and Residents to Call Home
Located in Northeast Texas, Winnsboro is a quiet community that treasures its past while embracing the future.
No matter the time of year, Winnsboro and its neighboring towns wait to make your visit a relaxing escape. Come in the spring to see the glorious dogwoods in bloom. Visit in the summer to enjoy world-class fishing, camping, or boating. Drive down quiet country roads in the fall to see an explosion of color during Autumn Trails. In the winter, bring your family to the Piney Woods for an old-fashioned Christmas tradition - cutting your own tree at a tree farm.
Located halfway between Dallas and Texarkana (just South of Interstate 30), Winnsboro always offers a hometown welcome. Enjoy the relaxed country atmosphere and friendly neighbors. You may find that you want to stay and call Winnsboro home.
The Crossroads of East Texas
Winnsboro's rich and varied history extends from the days of the Caddo Indians to the French settlements and from the wild logging era to the rather calm visits of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
The land on which the town is located was first surveyed by Gray B. King in 1835, and carved from the State of Caohuila and Texas, then a state under the Mexican government. The location sits astride the boundary between the Louisiana Territory and Old Mexico and equidistant from Dallas, Shreveport, and Texarkana.
John E. Winn and W.R. McMillan, our first settlers, came to Winnsboro prior to 1854. They traveled through Crossroads -- the original name of the town -- were attracted to the rich land on the edge of the Piney Woods, and purchased 351 acres in the Gray B. King tract. They opened the first post office in 1855, along with their mercantile business. The town of Crossroads was open for business.
Citizens soon changed the name to "Winnsborough," in honor of the original founder (John Winn). It retained that spelling until 1889, when the government changed the spelling to "Winnsboro."
The original crossroads were approximately three blocks to the North at Main and Pine streets. When the railroad arrived in 1898, the main intersection naturally migrated to the South.
Today, Winnsboro is a quiet East Texas community of 3,584 citizens. It remains the "hub," or centralized location, for many other East Texas cities starting with Greenville to the West, Mount Vernon to the North, Pittsburgh to the East, and Quitman and Mineola to the South.