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Gilmer is a city in East Texas and the county seat of Upshur County, founded in 1846, the same year the county itself was created.

Gilmer is named for Thomas Walker Gilmer, a former U.S. Secretary of the Navy who was killed on February 28, 1844, in the explosion of a new cannon being test-fired aboard the USS Princeton; the law creating Upshur County required its seat to bear his name.

Gilmer sits on the Old Cherokee Trace, a trail the Cherokee used in their travels, and Sam Houston traveled the trace through the area during the years he lived among the Cherokee.

The town was first laid out near Little Cypress Creek but was moved to higher ground because of frequent flooding.

Gilmer had a population of 4,843 at the 2020 census and covers about 4.6 square miles in the Piney Woods of East Texas.

Oil was discovered near Gilmer in 1931, in the depths of the Great Depression, and the boom helped pay for the county courthouse built in 1937.

Gilmer is home to the East Texas Yamboree, a sweet potato festival first held in October 1935 after a sweet-potato weevil quarantine on the local crop was lifted; it is one of the oldest continuous festivals in Texas and draws more than 100,000 visitors each year.

The Historic Upshur Museum, the county history museum, is housed in Gilmer's former U.S. post office, a building constructed in 1925-1926 on Simpson Street that served as the post office until 1991.

Gilmer is the birthplace of three major American musicians: Eagles co-founder Don Henley, pop singer Johnny Mathis, and blues guitarist Freddie King.