Noonday, TX

Noonday is a Smith County city seven miles south of Tyler, with an identity tied to two things: church-and-school history and the sweet onion. The Noonday Baptist Church dates to 1876 and gave the settlement its name, borrowed from a Georgia town. By 1884 the community had a gristmill, cotton gin, grocery, school, and church. The local soil around Brooks Saline Creek made farming the center of the place.

The onion story came later and put Noonday on a much larger map. A Texas Grano breeding program in the 1930s and 1940s produced the sweet onion associated with town; current local rules tie a Noonday Onion to a ten-mile growing radius. The city incorporated in 1981 and still keeps a volunteer fire department and community center. Noonday is an East Texas place where an old church, a farming settlement, and a very specific onion name all point to the same patch of Smith County. The church and school calendar still matter here.