Biohazard Cleanup Near Sunset Historic District Sunset, TX

Sunset is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in southern Montague County, about fifteen miles south of the town of Montague.

Sunset's first settlers arrived from Denton County in 1870, and Sam Smith opened a grocery store in the 1870s and applied for a post office in 1880 under the name Smithville.

When the Fort Worth and Denver Railway built through the area in 1882, residents moved to the present townsite to be near the tracks.

Sunset's residents voted to incorporate on July 26, 1884, although that first city corporation did not last long, and by 1900 the town's population had surpassed 600.

Until 1900, a surveying error placed Sunset in Wise County, and only a lawsuit that year officially awarded the land, including Sunset, to Montague County.

Sunset remained a thriving market center for the first four decades of the twentieth century before the Great Depression, World War II, and farm mechanization shrank it to about 200 residents by the late 1980s.

Sunset disincorporated as a city on April 19, 2007, returning to unincorporated community status.

On April 9, 2009, Sunset was evacuated ahead of fast-moving wildfires that ripped through the community and destroyed many homes and businesses.

Sunset's census population has rebounded in recent decades, rising from 339 in 2000 to 497 in 2010 and 543 in 2020.