Nacogdoches County, TX

Settlement & growth (pre-1960)

Long before Europeans arrived, the Caddo Confederacy — particularly the Hasinai branch — occupied the piney woods and bottomlands of what is now Nacogdoches County. Their settlements, including the village of Nabedache near modern-day Appleby, cultivated corn, beans, and squash. Spanish explorers encountered the Caddo in the 16th century, and by 1716 the Spanish crown established Mission Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches near the present-day city center to assert claim over the region. The mission failed, but a small civilian settlement persisted around the old site.

After Mexico gained independence in 1821, the area attracted Anglo-American settlers under Stephen F. Austin’s colony and later the Fredonian Rebellion. By the 1830s, families from the southern United States — primarily of English, Scots-Irish, and African descent (the latter enslaved) — poured into the county. Nacogdoches town became a commercial hub, while plantations spread along the Angelina River around present-day Garrison and Chireno. The 1860 census counted more than 3,000 enslaved people in the county, roughly 40% of the total population.

The Civil War and emancipation reshaped the county’s racial landscape. Formerly enslaved people established independent communities such as Woden and Melrose, where Black families farmed small plots and worked in the burgeoning timber industry. The arrival of the railroad in the 1880s boosted the lumber economy and drew new migrants — white sharecroppers from the Deep South and a modest number of European immigrants, including Irish railroad laborers and German tradesmen who settled in Cushing and Sacul. By 1900, the county’s population had swelled to roughly 28,000, with roughly one in three residents Black.

The early 20th century saw the rise of the Texas timber boom, with mills in Nacogdoches, Garrison, and Martinsville drawing both white and Black workers. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl brought a trickle of Okies and Arkies, but Nacogdoches County remained relatively insular. World War II and the subsequent GI Bill fueled expansion of Stephen F. Austin State University, which began attracting students from across the state, but the county’s ethnic and racial composition stayed largely unchanged through 1960: roughly 67% white and 32% Black, with a tiny Hispanic presence of less than 1%.

Modern era (post-1965)

The 1965 Hart-Cellar Immigration Act opened the door to new migration streams, but Nacogdoches County did not experience the mass immigration seen in Houston or Dallas. Instead, demographic change came primarily from two sources: the expansion of Stephen F. Austin State University and the broader Texas-to-Sun Belt migration within the United States. Starting in the 1970s, Hispanic families — many from South Texas and northern Mexico — moved into the county for agricultural work (poultry processing, row crops) and the service economy. By 2000, the Hispanic share had reached 12%, and it has since climbed to 21.3%, concentrated in the city of Nacogdoches and in unincorporated areas near Trawick and Etoile.

The Black population has remained stable at about 17%, though its distribution has shifted. Rural Black communities like Woden and Melrose have seen outmigration to larger cities, while Nacogdoches itself has maintained a strong Black presence tied to the university and local churches. The county’s Asian population — East and Southeast Asian — is only 0.6%, mostly international students and faculty at SFA. The Indian-subcontinent population is even smaller at 0.2%, confined almost entirely to the university community.

Domestic migration patterns have been modest but notable. Some retirees and teleworkers from the Dallas‑Fort Worth metroplex have relocated to Appleby and Cushing for lower housing costs and a quieter lifestyle. However, the county has not seen the explosive suburban growth that characterizes counties nearer to Houston or DFW. Its foreign-born share (5.3%) remains below the state average (17%) but has doubled since 2000, driven primarily by Mexican and Central American immigrants working in construction, landscaping, and poultry processing plants in Garrison and near the Nacogdoches county line.