Tenaha, Texas
12 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1953 and the latest in 1992. It stands in the Tenaha-Joaquin census division. It lies in ZIP code area 75974. The Survey maps it on the Tenaha East quadrangle. 989 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 348 feet above sea level.
Population over time
2 figuresTenaha fell from 1,160 to 989 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.
| Year | People | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 1,160 | |
| 2020 | 989 | -171 (-15%) |
Topographic sheets covering this place
7 surveys from 12 printed sheetsMatched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.
- 1953 USGS Palestine quadrangle1:250000, 2 printings
- 1957 USGS Palestine quadrangle1:250000
- 1958 USGS Center quadrangle1:62500, 3 printings
- 1984 USGS Palestine quadrangle1:250000, 3 printings
- 1984 USGS Tenaha East quadrangle1:24000
- 1986 USGS Nacogdoches quadrangle1:100000
- 1992 USGS Nacogdoches quadrangle1:100000
Fires near this place
71 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 71 fires within 5 miles of Tenaha between 1992 and 2020, burning about 512 acres in total. 6 started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
| Reported cause | Fires |
|---|---|
| Debris and open burning | 35 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 16 |
| Natural | 6 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 6 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 3 |
| Fireworks | 1 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 1 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 1 |
| Smoking | 1 |
| Other causes | 1 |
The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.
| Date | Cause | Size | Reported by | Name on the report |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 September 2011 | Debris and open burning | under an acre | Texas A & M Forest Service | HENDERSON - 534 |
| 30 September 2016 | Equipment and vehicle use | 2.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | 6164 |
| 24 September 1999 | Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 4.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | not named |
| 15 September 2005 | Equipment and vehicle use | 2.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | not named |
| 12 September 1993 | Equipment and vehicle use | 5.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | not named |
| 1 September 1995 | Debris and open burning | 6.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | not named |
| 9 August 2009 | Equipment and vehicle use | 1.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | WOODS 8-9-09 |
| 5 August 2013 | Natural | 2.0 acres | Texas A & M Forest Service | 7079 |
Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:
Storms near this place
21 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Tenaha in 21 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 10 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 2 flash flood, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| February 1998 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tenaha | $8,000,000 | Numerous reports of downed trees and power lines throughout the area. Every customer in the area lost power for several days. Property damage in the region resulted climbed to over 1 million dollars while over 6 million dollars damaged occurred in private timber loss. |
| November 1994 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tenaha | $5,000 | Trees were blown down by high winds. |
| March 1993 | Hail | Tenaha | $5,000 | Hail damaged roofs and several cars. Windshields were broken out of a few. |
| July 2010 | Lightning | Tenaha | $100 | A lightning strike caused trees to catch fire in the Tenaha, Texas area. |
| March 2025 | Hail | Tenaha | - | Quarter size hail reported at a convenience store in Tenaha. |
| March 2023 | Hail | Tenaha | - | Golf ball size hail reported near Tenaha. |
| April 2018 | Hail | Tenaha | - | Quarter size hail fell just east of Tenaha. |
| April 2018 | Hail | Tenaha | - | A picture posted to Twitter showed large hail slightly larger than golfballs that fell in Tenaha. |
| July 2012 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tenaha | - | Trees were downed in Tenaha, Texas. |
| November 2010 | Hail | Tenaha | - | Nickel to quarter size hail fell in Tenaha, Texas. |
| March 2005 | Hail | Tenaha | - | Hail fell at the intersection of US Highway 59 and County Rd. 4648. |
| May 2000 | Tornado (F1) | Tenaha | - | Tornado occurred in all wooded and farmland area void of structures. Numerous pine and oak trees snapped and pushed over. |
| May 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tenaha | - | Numerous large trees down across Hwy 7. |
| May 2000 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tenaha | - | Numerous trees down across Hwy 947. |
| August 1997 | Flash Flood | Tenaha | - | Excessive rains of over one foot in 24 hours led to the closure of Hwy 96 for nearly 200 yards between Center and Tenaha. Four to five feet of water was across the Hwy. |
| April 2006 | Hail | Tenaha | - | no account filed |
| May 2002 | Hail | Tenaha | - | no account filed |
| March 1997 | Flash Flood | Tenaha | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tenaha | - | no account filed |
| June 1996 | Thunderstorm Wind | Tenaha | - | no account filed |
| April 1993 | Hail | Tenaha | - | no account filed |
Nearest settlements
The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.
Elsewhere
Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.
| Wikipedia article on Tenaha | An encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied. |
| Wikidata item Q969628 | The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0). |
Provenance
This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 1369702. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.






