Big Sandy is a town in Upshur County, Texas, set in the Piney Woods of East Texas between the larger cities of Gladewater and Longview, both of which lie directly to the east. Its 2020 population was 1,231, a figure little changed from the 1,288 recorded in 2000, reflecting the community's stable, small-town scale. The town's geography is defined by U.S. Highway 80, its main thoroughfare, which runs through the community and cuts nearly in half a lake of the same name. That lake, situated at the center of town, gives Big Sandy a visual identity and a recreational focal point within the surrounding East Texas timberland. Big Sandy has a notable place in the region's educational history. In 1960, a second campus of Ambassador College — a liberal arts college associated with the Worldwide Church of God — opened in the town. The campus operated for nearly four decades before closing in 1997, and its former presence remains part of local memory. Today Big Sandy functions as a residential and small-commercial town serving the surrounding countryside. Homes, churches, schools, and local businesses cluster near the highway and the lake, and the town's position west of Gladewater and Longview gives residents convenient access to the larger employment, shopping, and medical services of those cities. The broader Upshur County landscape — pine forests, lakes, and rolling East Texas terrain — shapes daily life, with fishing, hunting, and outdoor recreation woven into the local culture. Big Sandy's location on U.S. Highway 80 also places it along a historic East Texas travel corridor. The town offers the quiet of a small Piney Woods community within easy reach of East Texas's larger centers.