Eiffel Tower

Paris was named for the French city. Thomas Poteet, an employee of the merchant George W. Wright, gave it the name after Wright donated fifty acres in February 1844 and voters made the place the Lamar County seat. A 65-foot Eiffel Tower stands at 2025 S. Collegiate Drive, beside the Love Civic Center.

Members of the local welders' union built it in 1993. The plan was to make it five feet taller than the replica in Paris, Tennessee, with a cowboy hat on top, which brought it to 65 feet; the shiny red hat was added in 1998. Twenty-seven LED lights change with the season, red and green at Christmas, and families use them for colored announcements at gender reveal parties.

The Red River Valley Veterans Memorial is next door. The Congress of the Republic of Texas incorporated Paris on February 3, 1845, and Lamar was one of the few Texas counties to vote against secession. Downtown, the Culbertson Fountain, Italian marble finished in 1927, marks the city's rebuilding after the 1916 fire. Paris had also burned in 1877, and it became a railroad center when the Texas and Pacific arrived in 1876, with more lines after 1887.