Wells, TX

Wells is a town in Cherokee County, Texas, United States. The 2010 census counted 790 residents. Wells is at the junction of U.S. Highway 69 and Farm to Market Road 1247, twenty-three miles south of Rusk in extreme southern Cherokee County. Wells was established in 1885 as a stop on the newly constructed Kansas and Gulf Short Line Railroad and was named for Maj. Lack of transportation forced most children to walk to school, so for that reason small schoolhouses were scattered at five-mile intervals throughout Cherokee county.

Approximately 50 of these schoolhouses existed in the county in the 1870s. A newcomer can read Wells through the overlap of its older landmarks, surrounding geography, and current places. For a newcomer, Wells comes into focus through those concrete links among its past, landscape, and current routines. Wells is in the southernmost tip of Cherokee County in East Texas, approximately 65 miles south of Tyler and 17 miles north of Lufkin on U.S. 69.