PINE TREE, TEXAS. Pine Tree, a rural community off Farm Road 1845 in eastern Gregg County, was first settled in the mid-1840s and was named for a large pine tree under which some of the early residents held religious services. The Pine Tree Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the oldest organized church in Gregg County, was established in 1847, and a post office began operating at the community the next year. A school was in operation by the early 1850s, and a Masonic lodge was chartered in 1852. The community, however, was never very large, and its post office closed in 1871 after the railroad bypassed the town. In the early 1940s Pine Tree was an election precinct and consolidated school district. After World War II the area became part of Longview, although in the early 1990s it still retained a separate identity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene W. McWhorter, Traditions of the Land: The History of Gregg County (Longview, Texas: Gregg County Historical Foundation, 1989). Marker Files, Texas Historical Commission, Austin.
