Brookston is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Lamar County, in the northeast corner of Texas. At the 2020 census its population was 91. The community sits amid the gently rolling farmland and pasture that characterizes this part of the Red River country, southwest of Paris, the county seat, which lies near the Texas–Oklahoma border. Brookston's origins date to the late nineteenth century, when a post office was established on land owned by A. D. Brooks, for whom the community was named. By 1884 Brookston had about one hundred residents and had become an important cotton-shipping point on the regional rail and wagon network, reflecting Lamar County's deep roots in cotton agriculture and its position on the early transportation routes of Northeast Texas. In its early decades the community supported the stores and services typical of a small farming town. Over the twentieth century Brookston gradually declined in size as agriculture mechanized and residents moved toward larger towns. By 1957 its school system had been consolidated with the West Lamar Independent School District, and the community's population settled into the low hundreds before dropping further in the decades that followed. By the 1990 census Brookston had roughly seventy inhabitants, a figure that has since remained near one hundred. Today Brookston is a quiet rural crossroads rather than a conventional town. Students attend the Chisum Independent School District, which serves the south-central and southwest portions of Lamar County, and the entire county lies within the service area of Paris Junior College. Residents look to Paris for employment, retail, and healthcare, while enjoying the low density and open space of the surrounding countryside. For those seeking a rural homesite within convenient reach of a county seat, Brookston offers a peaceful slice of Northeast Texas with easy access to the amenities of the larger Paris area.