Clarksville City, TX

Clarksville City sits on U.S. 80 between Gladewater and White Oak, split between Gregg and Upshur counties. Before the city existed, the area moved through several names: Gilead, Point Pleasant, and later Clarksville. A stagecoach stop operated at William W. Walters's home, but the older settlement thinned after the railroad bypassed it in 1873. The East Texas oil field changed the picture in the 1930s, bringing oil camps, businesses, and new highway traffic along the route.

Residents incorporated Clarksville City in 1956 as Gladewater's boundaries and tax structure pushed the oilfield community to organize on its own. Old Highway 80, now Pelphrey Drive in part, still hints at that transition, and a Texas historical marker at City Hall remembers Point Pleasant. The city lies within the Gladewater-area school and service network, with Union Grove schools serving the Upshur County side. Today the map is a mix of wooded East Texas roads, working neighborhoods, and the remains of an oil boom that reshaped this stretch of highway.