About this city
Also known as: The Home of Sam Houston, Prison City
Huntsville is an historic, culturally deep city serving as the county seat of Walker County, beautifully nestled within the dense, rolling pine forests of East Texas, roughly 70 miles north of Houston. Founded in 1835 as an Indian trading post by Pleasant Gray, the city is globally celebrated as the long-time home and final resting place of General Sam Houston, the legendary founding father and president of the Republic of Texas. Huntsville holds a highly prominent and rigid institutional identity as the historic headquarters for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, operating the nation's oldest and most active correctional facilities since 1848. Today, anchored by Sam Houston State University, the city dynamically balances its heavy institutional prison grit and profound historical legacy with lush national forest recreation.
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Practical Tourism Metadata
Suggested stay: 1–2 days
Photograph the colossal, 67-foot-tall statue of Sam Houston standing proudly beside the interstate, tour General Sam Houston's authentic historic homes at the Sam Houston Memorial Museum, explore historic correctional relics at the Texas Prison Museum, and scuba dive inside the crystal-clear waters of the Huntsville Blue Lagoon.
