The second in our sequence of towns in Texas.

Gun Barrel City

Gun Barrel City is in Henderson County, about 20 miles northwest of Athens. As Texas towns go, it’s not very old, having started during the building of Cedar Creek Reservoir in the 1960s. Since then, you might say Gun Barrel City has grown faster than a speeding bullet, shooting from a population of 60 in 1970 to 5000 plus in 2000.

Many a barroom denizen has learned the hard way that gunpowder and alcohol don’t mix, but Gun Barrel City was incorporated to facilitate the legal sale of beer and wine.

The town got its name from its motto. “We shoot straight at you.” The town’s symbol, of course, is a rifle. But, as the Handbook of Texas Online points out, a roadway known as Gun Barrel Lane cut through the area well before the lake was there. Since the road represented a short cut from Mabank to Seven Points, the Gun Barrel descriptor might have had to do with its straightness between A and B.