Building in Rains County
Rains County is in northeast Texas on the upper Sabine River, bordered by Hunt, Hopkins, Wood, and Van Zandt counties. Emory, the county seat and largest town, sits in the middle of the county sixty-four miles east of Dallas. With only 258.8 square miles, it is one of the smallest counties in the state.
Altitude varies only from 406 to 491 feet above sea level, and the soils are mainly a mix of sand and clay. More than 10 percent of the county lies under Lake Tawakoni and Lake Fork Reservoir. Rain averages 42.2 inches a year, July highs average 95° F and January lows 31°, and the growing season is 242 days.
James H. Hooker of Tennessee, probably the first settler of European descent, built Hooker’s Mill on the Sabine in the 1840s. Cotton was the main cash crop from the start, and farmers hauled it by oxcart to Shreveport. State senator Emory Rains lobbied for a new county, and the legislature approved it on June 9, 1870, mostly from Wood County land with parts of Hunt and Hopkins.
NOAA’s Storm Events Database lists 13 hail reports in Rains County from 2016 to 2025, 12 of them an inch across or larger, with stones up to 2.75 inches. The same records show 11 damaging thunderstorm wind reports, with gusts up to about 81 mph, and 2 tornadoes. That is why a patio cover’s roof panels, fasteners and posts here are chosen for hail and wind, not only for shade.
