Centerville, Texas: Moved to the Middle

When Leon County was organized in eighteen forty-six, officials picked a town called Leona, on the southern boundary near the Old San Antonio Road, as the county seat. The problem was that Leona was not actually in the center of the county, and Texas law required county seats to be as close to the geographical middle of their county as possible. So in eighteen fifty, officials surveyed a new townsite, named it Centreville for its position, and moved the county records.

Centerville became the county seat in eighteen fifty, though some sources say eighteen fifty-one. The town's name reflects the purely practical logic of its founding: the land was donated by two local landowners, and the spot was simply the one that sat in the middle.