Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Arp Arp, TX

Arp has had four names: the earliest settlement was called Bissa, from the Choctaw/Chickasaw word for blackberry, then Jarvis Switch (later Jarvis Junction) after the International-Great Northern Railroad arrived in 1872, then Strawberry for its fruit crops.

The town was renamed Arp in 1899 for Bill Arp, the pen name of nationally known Georgia humorist Charles Henry Smith — legend says the short three-letter name was chosen so strawberry growers could mark their shipping crates faster.

Arp became a major East Texas fruit and vegetable shipping point, and truck farmer J. W. Melton began shipping tomatoes from the town in 1897.

In 1931 Guy V. Lewis drilled the first successful oil well in Smith County near Arp, and the McMurry Refining Company made the town its headquarters.

Arp's population peaked at about 2,500 during the oil boom in 1936, then fell back; the 2020 census counted 892 residents.

At the 2010 census Arp had 970 people living in 361 households across its roughly 2.5 square miles in southeastern Smith County, about 18 miles southeast of Tyler.

The Arp Independent School District runs an elementary school, a junior high, and Arp High School all in the small town.

Singer Larry Henley, lead vocalist of the 1960s pop group The Newbeats and composer of "Wind Beneath My Wings," was born in Arp.

Kickapoo Creek flows just south of Arp, and State Highway 135 runs through the town along the Union Pacific rail line.