Mineola is a city in the U.S. state of Texas in Wood County. It lies 26 miles north of Tyler. Its population was 4,823 at the 2020 census.

The town was incorporated as the railroads arrived in 1873. A railroad official, Ira H. Evans, combined the names of his daughter, Ola, and her friend, Minnie Patten, to create the city herald Mineola.

Mineola came into existence when the railroads built lines through the eastern share of the state. In 1873, the Texas and Pacific and the International-Great Northern raced to see which could gain to Mineola first. The I-GN reached the finish 15 minutes earlier. A city dispensation was organized in 1873, a publicize office opened in 1875, and the town was incorporated in 1877, but a flame in the 1880s destroyed 18 buildings. The town’s oldest paper, the Mineola Monitor, was founded in 1876. By 1890, the town had seven churches, several schools including a black release school, hotels, banks. In 1895, Mineola became the site of the Wood County Fair.

Since Mineola was in the heart of the East Texas timber belt, timber was rich for making railroad ties and lumber. Mineola provided most of the ties to fixed the T&P RR west to El Paso in 1879; S. Zuckerman, a Mineola resident, filled contracts for 85,000 ties that were used in the construction. During the community’s first 60 years, farm products included cotton, livestock, fruit, and berries. A chair factory opened in 1886, became a crate and basket factory in 1900, and operated until 1952. Highway improvement, the Magnolia Pipeline Company gas line, and the commencement of a railroad terminal caused layer during the 1920s, and the discovery of oil in parts of Wood County and construction of a T&P railroad shop spurred the economy during the 1940s. Diversified crop growing gave artifice to cattle raising and watermelon crops by 1950. The Mineola Watermelon Festival began in 1948. Subsequently, sweet-potato farming, a creamery, a nursery, and a company that supplies poles and pulpwood to the telephone company helped the economy.