Jonathon Anderson, a migrant from the United States and founder of Panola County, donated nearly 100 acres of land in the 1800s to get the county started.

In the antebellum years, planters used enslaved African Americans as workers on their large plantations.

After the Civil War, freedmen worked largely as tenant farmers and sharecroppers in this area.

[5] The TTC-69 component (recommended preferred) of the once-planned Trans-Texas Corridor went through Panola County.

[6] As of the census[13] of 2000, 22,756 people, 8,821 households, and 6,395 families resided in the county.