Troy

Small, young and growing

Troy sits directly on Interstate 35, roughly seven to eight miles north of Temple and twenty-six south of Waco. It grew up around a railroad station established in 1882, replacing an earlier settlement called Old Troy a couple of miles north on Elm Creek, and incorporated in 1960 with 275 people.

It now has around 2,400 residents and grew more than forty percent between 2010 and 2020. The number that matters for a family, though, is this one: about 32 percent of Troy’s residents are under eighteen. That is a notably young town, and it shows in what the place is set up for.

Growth is an active conversation here rather than a settled one. A proposed subdivision off Old Highway 81 was postponed repeatedly at council with residents divided, and the school superintendent has publicly said enrolment is approaching capacity. In August 2026 the city moved toward annexing about 162 acres on the southwest side. If you are buying here, the shape of the town in five years is genuinely not fixed yet.

Why people choose Troy

Three reasons, mostly. The interstate access, which puts Temple jobs about eight miles away and Waco within a straightforward commute. The school district, which is small and self-contained. And the availability of land — acreage tracts trade regularly around Troy in a way they do not inside Temple or Belton.

There is a fourth reason that matters more than it sounds: Troy generally falls inside the USDA eligible area. For a first-time buyer, that is a zero-down loan on a house with land around it, eight miles from a major employment centre. That combination is hard to find.

Schools and services

Troy Independent School District runs Mays Elementary, Troy Elementary, Raymond Mays Middle School and Troy High School. Troy ISD also serves part of the city of Temple, which is one of the ways Temple’s four-district arrangement comes about.

The city provides water, sewer and rubbish collection inside the city limits. Worth knowing: the Troy Volunteer Fire Department, established in 1956, is entirely volunteer and covers both fire and EMS across 128 square miles of northeast Bell County. That is a large area for a volunteer service, and it is the kind of thing that can affect an insurance quote, so it is worth asking your insurer about the ISO rating for a specific address.

Worth checking before you buy in Troy

• Inside the city or in the county. It determines whether you are on city water and sewer or on a well and septic, and it changes your taxing entities.
• Road maintenance. Outside the city, check whether the road is county-maintained. In Bell County a green street sign means the county maintains it and a blue sign means the landowners do.
• Septic permitting. Bell County requires every on-site sewage facility to be permitted regardless of lot size, and it needs a licensed installer. Start early if you are building.
• Agricultural valuation. If the land carries one and you change the use, rollback taxes can follow. Confirm the current status with the appraisal district.
• Insurance and the ISO rating. Volunteer fire coverage over a large rural area is worth raising with your insurer before you are committed.
• What is proposed nearby. The city is actively considering annexations and new subdivisions. Ask what is on the council agenda for the land around a property.