Sell Your Car for Cash in Kilgore, TX

Cash Offers for Kilgore Car Sellers

Kilgore sits mostly in Gregg County (with a portion extending into neighboring Rusk County) in the heart of East Texas, about 12 miles south of Longview along U.S. Highway 259 and State Highway 42, with a population of roughly 13,500. The city is world-famous for the 1930-31 East Texas oil boom, which turned one downtown city block into the legendary 'World's Richest Acre,' once home to two dozen working oil derricks packed into a single acre. That oil-town identity still defines Kilgore today, from the derrick-lined skyline downtown to the East Texas Oil Museum on the Kilgore College campus.

Geography of Kilgore

Kilgore straddles the Gregg-Rusk county line in the East Texas Piney Woods, roughly halfway between Longview to the north and Henderson to the south along U.S. 259. Interstate 20 passes just north of the city, connecting Kilgore to Longview, Tyler, and the greater Dallas-Fort Worth metro to the west and Shreveport, Louisiana to the east.

Free towing is included anywhere in Kilgore and the surrounding area. You can find more about local services on the City of Kilgore's official website.

History of Kilgore

Kilgore was founded in 1872 as a stop on the Henderson and Overton Branch of the Texas and Pacific Railway, named for landowner Constantine Buckley Kilgore, on whose farm the townsite was platted. The sleepy farming town of fewer than 1,000 residents was transformed almost overnight after wildcatter Columbus Marion 'Dad' Joiner's Daisy Bradford No. 3 well struck oil on October 3, 1930, followed weeks later by the Lou Della Crim No. 1 well drilled on the edge of town. Kilgore's population swelled past 10,000 within a year as derricks went up on residential lots, church yards, and eventually a single downtown block that came to be known as the 'World's Richest Acre.'

Culture of Kilgore

Kilgore College, founded in 1935 in the wake of the oil boom, anchors the city's economy and culture today alongside a continued base of oil-and-gas service companies. The college is also home to the East Texas Oil Museum, which recreates a 1930s boomtown street scene and tells the story of the discovery that made Kilgore famous.

Kilgore is equally known for the Kilgore College Rangerettes, the nation's first collegiate precision dance-drill team, founded in 1940 by Gussie Nell Davis; the Rangerettes still perform at home football games and have inspired drill teams nationwide. The downtown World's Richest Acre park, with its recreated forest of oil derricks at Commerce and Main streets, remains one of the more distinctive small-town landmarks anywhere in Texas.