Star Harbor, TX

Star Harbor is a small Henderson County city on a peninsula at the southern end of Cedar Creek Reservoir. The 2020 census counted 482 residents. The lake surrounds much of the city, with Malakoff about four miles northwest and Athens, the county seat, about 13 miles east. Star Harbor maintains its own water system, police department, city hall, clubhouse, and roughly eight miles of streets; Malakoff Independent School District serves local students. A nine-hole public golf course and the reservoir itself are part of the town's working map.

The city incorporated in April 1970 as the Cedar Creek reservoir community took shape. Water, roads, lake property, and small municipal services matter more here than a conventional downtown, while Malakoff supplies many larger errands. Residents cross the lake roads for school, work, groceries, and medical appointments, then return to a place organized around the shoreline and the dam just to the south. Star Harbor is a lake city with its own utility and police responsibilities, a compact civic government, and a landscape where the water is always close enough to affect ordinary decisions.