Pine Springs, Smith County, Texas

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Pine Springs is an unincorporated community in Smith County, Texas, United States. It is also called Fruit. The community sits along U.S. Route 271 and Texas State Highway 155, and part of it lies within the northeastern edge of Tyler’s city limits. In 2000, about 150 people lived there.

History
The first settlers arrived in the 1840s, including the Shamburger family. In 1881, E. S. Cook and Perry Ray bought land for the Pine Springs Community. A building built that year served as both a school and a church. Pine Springs Baptist Church started in the early 1890s. The settlement was named for a large spring near the school. In 1891 the Smith County Canning Company opened a factory in the area. A post office named Fruit opened in 1894, with Thomas A. Shamburger as postmaster. After hardships hit the orchards, many residents left. The post office moved to Tyler in 1900.

After the canning factory closed, growers turned to rose farming, and Pine Springs helped launch the Tyler rose industry. In 1903, school records show two schools: one with three teachers and 139 white students, and another with one teacher and 53 Black students. By 1936 the community had a church, a cemetery, a school, one business, and a small cluster of homes. The four-teacher school then served 128 white students. In 1952 Pine Springs ISD was created, but it was absorbed by Tyler ISD in 1956. After 1963, the old school became the Pine Springs Community Center. By 1966 the area had a school, a church, a cemetery, a roadside park, scattered homes, and a growing residential area. Maps from 1981 show about ten businesses on Highway 271 and a church, cemetery, and community center north of the highway on Ray’s Creek.