Marshall, Texas

Marshall is a city in East Texas that serves as the county seat of Harrison County, founded in 1841 about 150 miles east of Dallas and 40 miles west of Shreveport, Louisiana. By 1860 it was the fourth largest city in Texas and seat of its richest county, and during the Civil War it served as a Confederate supply depot and gunpowder manufacturer, briefly hosting the exiled Confederate government of Missouri as its temporary capital. The 2020 census recorded a population of 23,392, with about 66,726 in the greater Marshall area, and the city was a center of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s, including the first sit-ins in Texas. Known as the Pottery Capital of the World for its ceramic industry and home to the historically Black colleges Wiley University and Bishop College, Marshall today hosts one of the largest light festivals in the United States, the annual Wonderland of Lights.