Swamp City

Swamp City is a tiny residential community located off State Highway 135 about three miles south-southwest of Gladewater and thirteen miles west of Longview in western Gregg County. Located near the East Texas oilfield, the town probably began in the 1930s when workers set up oilfield camps and tent cities in the area as a result of the booming oil industry. The name Swamp City may have been inspired by the region's swampy bottomlands of the Sabine River, located about a mile from the community. Area maps of the 1940s showed a business, a sawmill, and rows of dwellings. From the 1940s to 1960 the U.S. census reported one business and a population of twenty. The number of residents declined to eight during the latter half of the twentieth century, and by 2000 Swamp City consisted of scattered residential development.