Chandler is a city in Henderson County, Texas, situated at the northern end of Lake Palestine along Highway 31, about twenty miles southwest of Tyler. The community traces its origins to an 1870s Methodist settlement called Stillwater on the Athens-Tyler stagecoach road, later relocating to its present site as the railroad and regional trade reshaped East Texas. Agriculture long anchored the local economy, with fruit farming eventually replacing cotton as the main source of income, and the town elected its first mayor in 1960 as it began its transition from farming village to residential small city. Today roughly 3,300 residents call Chandler home. The town combines a compact core of shops, churches, parks, and school campuses with easy access to two of East Texas's defining landscapes: the 25,000-acre Lake Palestine to the south and the pine forests and Neches River bottomlands that frame the area. Recreation centers on the lake — boating, fishing, and water sports — as well as the Neches River, where Chandler River Park provides river access and a put-in for the Upper Neches Paddling Trail. The restored former home of Senator Ralph Yarborough, now the Chandler Museum and Visitors Center in McCain Park, anchors the town's sense of place and local history. For residents, Chandler's position on Highway 31 makes the Tyler commute a defining feature of daily life. Tyler, roughly twenty minutes northeast, supplies the region's employment centers, medical facilities, shopping, and cultural amenities, while Chandler provides the quieter, lake-oriented setting and smaller scale that draw families, retirees, and those seeking a rural East Texas lifestyle. Steady growth since 2000 has added newer neighborhoods and lake-area communities to an established small-town core, giving the city a character that balances convenience, outdoor recreation, and the piney-woods setting that distinguishes this part of the state.