Huntsville is a city in and the county chair of Walker County, Texas. The population was 45,941 as of the 2020 census. It is the middle of the Huntsville micropolitan area. Huntsville is in the East Texas Piney Woods upon Interstate 45 and house to Texas State Prison, Sam Houston State University, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Huntsville State Park, and HEARTS Veterans Museum of Texas.

The city served as the domicile of Sam Houston, who is qualified in Huntsville by the Sam Houston Memorial Museum and a statue upon Interstate 45.

The city had its beginning going on for 1836, when Pleasant and Ephraim Gray opened a trading post upon the site. Ephraim Gray became first postmaster in 1837, naming it after his hometown, Huntsville, Alabama.

Huntsville became the house of Sam Houston, who served as President of the Republic of Texas, Governor of the State of Texas, Governor of Tennessee, U.S. Senator, and Tennessee congressman. Houston led the Texas Army in the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive victory of the Texas Revolution. He has been noted for his life among the Cherokees of Tennessee, and— near the halt of his life — for his challenger to the American Civil War, a certainly unpopular approach in his day. Huntsville has two of Houston’s homes, his grave, and the Sam Houston Memorial Museum. Houston’s animatronics in Huntsville is also commemorated by his namesake Sam Houston State University, and by a 70 ft (21 m) statue. (The towering statue, “A Tribute to Courage” by artist David Adickes, has been described as the world’s largest statue of an American hero, and is easily viewed by travelers on Interstate 45.)