Skip to content

Centerville, Texas

Everything Centerville is known for

1 song mention this city 1 artist from here

RoadyGoat plays music like this when you drive through Centerville. It's free on iPhone, and full songs play through Apple Music.

Sign up for the free newsletter Get the iPhone app

Music in Centerville

Songs About Centerville

Ashgrove
Dave Alvin
2%
"There was Big Joe and Lightnin'"

Artists From Centerville

L
Lightnin' Hopkins
blues

Rivers & Roads in Song near Centerville

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Centerville.

Interstate 45 8 songs Trinity River 11 songs Kickapoo Creek 4 songs

Musical Heritage

The Boy With the Cigar Box Guitar RoadyGoat

Sam Lightnin' Hopkins was born in Centerville, just up the road, around nineteen eleven or twelve. His father, Abe, died in nineteen fifteen, and two of Lightnin's biographers say Abe was murdered, and that Sam's oldest brother left home rather than stay and kill the man who did it. After that, his mother brought the children here to Leona. It was here, the Handbook of Texas says, that at about eight years old Sam made his first guitar: a cigar box with chicken wire for strings. By ten he was playing with his cousin Texas Alexander and with Blind Lemon Jefferson, who told him to keep at it. Years later, at family gatherings here, a younger cousin born in Leona, Albert Collins, first heard him play. Collins remembered listening to Lightnin' and his guitar at family get togethers. Two giants of Texas blues, from one little town. Lightnin' Hopkins went on to make around a hundred albums and to play Carnegie Hall.

RoadyGoat → · 7.2 mi away

History of Centerville

Lightnin' Hopkins Built His First Guitar Out of a Cigar Box Here RoadyGoat

One of the most influential bluesmen in American history started life right here. Sam Hopkins, who the world would come to know as Lightnin', was born in Centerville in 1911 or 1912, the youngest child of Abe and Frances Hopkins, on a hardscrabble farm in the Leon County countryside. When his father died around 1915 the family moved a short way south to Leona, but the music was already in him. By eight he had built himself a working guitar out of a cigar box strung with chicken wire, and by ten he was playing alongside his cousin Texas Alexander and the towering Blind Lemon Jefferson, who told the boy to keep at it. He did, eventually recording for nearly twenty labels, picking up the name Lightnin' at a 1946 Los Angeles session, and later playing Carnegie Hall and opening for the Grateful Dead during the folk-blues revival. When he died in Houston in 1982, more than four thousand people came to the funeral. The country backroads around Centerville are where that restless, talking-blues guitar style first took shape. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Blues Foundation.)

RoadyGoat →

The Stockade Fort That Held This Frontier RoadyGoat

A few miles south of where you are now, in the spring of 1840, Tennessee and Mississippi families pushed into the wedge of land between the Navasota and Trinity rivers, the first settlement north of the Old San Antonio Road. After C.C. Staley was killed early that year, the Byrns and Erwin settlers threw up a palisade fort, a square of upright logs roughly seventy-five yards on a side, enclosing two blockhouses and eleven cabins. Because the ground nearby was low and boggy, the place became Fort Boggy, named for the soggy creek bottom rather than any man. By the end of 1840 around seventy-five people sheltered inside. Republic of Texas President Mirabeau Lamar authorized a company of Rangers under Captain Thomas Greer to defend it, but Greer was killed in 1841 while scouting Keechi Creek. Sickness and continued raids thinned the families out, and once the danger eased the fort fell to ruin. Today the ground is the centerpiece of Fort Boggy State Park, quiet woods where a desperate little stockade once kept this corner of Texas alive. (Source: Texas Parks and Wildlife; Handbook of Texas.)

RoadyGoat →

Woody's Smokehouse and the Jerky Capital of I-45 RoadyGoat

If you've ever driven I-45 between Houston and Dallas, you've almost certainly seen the signs for Woody's Smokehouse, and the big northbound store sits at 947 West St. Mary's Street in Centerville. The whole operation traces back to Dudley Woody Wood, a Houston Kroger meat cutter who moved to Centerville in 1975. He'd picked up smoking technique on an Arkansas fishing trip after stumbling onto a place called Coy's Smokehouse, and back home he opened a grocery and a smokehouse, processing venison for deer hunters. When I-45 opened up the country to traffic, Wood saw the future and moved his business right onto the interstate, first into a gas station around 1978 on the southbound side, then expanding to the large northbound location near the Texas 7 exit. Generations of road-trippers have pulled off here for smoked sausage, barbecue, and above all jerky, so much jerky that the place bills itself as the Jerky Capital of the World. It's the rare interstate pit stop that's a genuine local institution. Pull in hungry. (Source: Woody's Smokehouse; The Eagle.)

RoadyGoat →

Hopkins, Sam [Lightnin']

1911

Sam (Lightnin') Hopkins, blues singer and guitarist, was born in Centerville, Texas, on March 15, probably in 1911. Though some sources give his year of birth as 1912, his Social Security application listed the year as 1911. He was the son of Abe and Frances (Sims) Hopkins. After his father died in 1915, the family (Sam, his mother and five brothers and sisters) moved to Leona. At age eight he made his first instrument, a cigar-box guitar with chicken-wire strings. By ten he was playing music with his cousin, Texas Alexander, and Blind Lemon Jefferson , who encouraged him to continue. Hopkins also played with his brothers, blues musicians John Henry and Joel. By the mid-1920s Sam had started jumping trains, shooting dice, and playing the blues anywhere he could. Apparently he married Elamer Lacey sometime in the 1920s, and they had several children, but by the mid-1930s Lacey, frustrated by his wandering lifestyle, took the children and left Hopkins. He served time at the Houston County Prison Farm in the mid-1930s, and after his release he returned to the blues-club circuit. In 1946 he had his big break and first studio session-in Los Angeles for Aladdin Recordings. On the record was a piano player named Wilson (Thunder) Smith; by chance he combined well with Sam to give him his nickname, Lightnin'. The album has been described as "downbeat solo blues" characteristic of Hopkins's style. Aladdin was so impressed with Hopkins that the company invited him back for a second session in 1947. He eventually made forty-three recordings for the label. Over his career Hopkins recorded for nearly twenty different labels, including Gold Star Records in Houston. On occasion he would record for one label while under contract to another. In 1950 he settled in Houston, but he continued to tour the country periodically. Though he recorded prolifically between 1946 and 1954, his records for the most part were not big outside the Black community. It was not until 1959, when Hopkins began working with legendary producer Sam Charters, that his music began to reach a mainstream White audience. Hopkins switched to an acoustic guitar and became a hit in the folk -blues revival of the 1960s. During the early 1960s he played at Carnegie Hall with Pete Seeger and Joan Baez and in 1964 toured with the American Folk Blues Festival. By the end of the decade he was opening for such rock bands as the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. During a tour of Europe in the 1970s, he played for Queen Elizabeth II at a command performance. Hopkins also performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. In 1972 he worked on the soundtrack to the film Sounder . He was also the subject of a documentary, The Blues According to Lightnin' Hopkins, which won the prize at the Chicago Film Festival for outstanding documentary in 1970. Some of his biggest hits included "Short Haired Women / Big Mama Jump!" (1947); "Shotgun Blues," which went to Number 5 on the Billboard charts in 1950; and "Penitentiary Blues" (1959). His albums included The Complete Prestige /Bluesville Recordings , The Complete Aladdin Recordings , and the Gold Star Sessions (two volumes). Hopkins recorded a total of more than eighty-five albums and toured around the world. But after a 1970 car crash, many of the concerts he performed were on his front porch or at a bar near his house. He had a knack for writing songs impromptu, and frequently wove legends around a core of truth. His often autobiographical songs made him a spokesman for the southern Black community that had no voice in the White mainstream until blues attained a broader popularity through White singers like Elvis Presley. In 1980 Lightnin' Hopkins was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. Hopkins died of cancer of the esophagus on January 30, 1982, in Houston. He was survived by his caretaker, Antoinette Charles, and four children. His funeral was attended by more than 4,000, including fans and musicians. He was buried in

Tsha Handbook →

Centerville - Birthplace of Lightnin' Hopkins

1912

Centerville, Texas was the birthplace of Sam 'Lightnin'' Hopkins, one of the greatest and most prolific blues guitarists in history, who brought Texas country blues to a worldwide audience.

Historical Marker →

Middleton, William B.

1842

William B. Middleton, pioneer, sheriff, and legislator, was born on August 4, 1819, in Crawford County, Illinois. In 1837 his father moved the family to Texas, and they settled in Leon County. The family and eleven other families built the settlement known as Fort Boggy where they lived for two years. President Sam Houston ordered the men to organize a ranging company to protect the settlement against Indian raids. In 1842 General Adrian Woll and a force of Mexican troops invaded Texas. Middleton answered the call from President Sam Houston to join the army, and he and his brothers were assigned to a Captain Wilson's company. He joined the ill-fated Mier Expedition and was one of the participants in the Black Bean Episode . Middleton and his brother drew a white bean that allowed them to live, although his brother later died in prison in Mexico City. Middleton was imprisoned in Mexico for two years. After his return to Texas, he married Mary Jane Potts in December 1845. He was elected sheriff of Leon County in 1846. During the Mexican War , Middleton served as a lieutenant in James Gillaspie 's company of the First Regiment of Texas Mounted Volunteers and returned to Leon County after mustering out. He was elected sheriff twice more. In 1855 and again in 1859 he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives. William Middleton died on March 17, 1877. He is buried in Makamson Cemetery in Leon County.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.1 mi away

Whaley, David M.

1862

David M. Whaley, druggist and Confederate infantry officer, was born in 1822 in Pennsylvania. He was the son of James Whaley. He trained to be a doctor and moved to Leon County, Texas, in 1853. He worked as a druggist, and, as a strong advocate for health on the frontier, he dispensed medicines and attended to the ill. He was a state senator in the Eighth Legislature representing the Twenty-first District including parts of Brazos, Burleson, Leon, and Robertson counties. During the Civil War , he was the captain of Company C in the Fifth Texas Infantry . Whaley was promoted to major on July 17, 1862. Whaley died on August 22, 1862, at the battle of Freeman's Ford in Virginia. This series of skirmishes took place from August 22 to August 25 in and around Culpeper County and Fauquier County. The area was laden with corn, and the Union and the Confederate sides took advantage of this readily available foodstuff, each sending out a corn gatherer. In the process of corn gathering, the two met each other in the middle and promptly began to pummel one another. Each side became aware of the fisticuffs, and shooting began. The Fifth Texas Infantry was especially vulnerable due to the extra long staff upon which they carried their Texas Lone Star flag. The flag caught the eye of the Federal troops, and a fired artillery shell struck Whaley's area killing him instantly. One other man died, and four others were wounded. Whaley was buried near where he fell.

Tsha Handbook → · 3.1 mi away

Fort Boggy

1840

Pioneers who settled in this area bout 1840 included members of the Middleton, Byrns, Staley, Erwin, Jones, Capp, Bloodworth, Philpott, Easton, Howell, and Hinton families. Nearby Kichai and Kickapoo Indian camps afforded these early settlers little sense of security. On February 5, 1840, Christopher C. Staley was ambushed and killed by a group of Indians while out hunting near his home. This incident led to the building of Fort Boggy for the protection and safety of the settlers. Named for its proximity to Boggy Creek, the fort consisted of two blockhouses with eleven dwellings inside an area of about 5000 square feet. A military company, authorized by Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar, was formed under the leadership of Capt. Thomas Greer to protect the fort. According to one account, 77 people moved into the fort upon its completion. Illness proved to be a major problem for them. In 1841, while leading a scouting party beyond the fort, Captain Greer was killed in an Indian attack. Soon after, the threat of raids lessened, and the need for Fort Boggy no longer was vital. For many years, however, a community church and school retained the name "Boggy." As an early aid in the settlement of this area, Fort Boggy remains significant to the history of Leon County.

Historical Marker → · 4.5 mi away

Leon County Courthouse

1887

Built 1887 of slate brick, locally made. One of oldest Texas courthouses still in its original state. County created in 1846. County seat was moved from Leona to Centerville in 1850. Two earlier courthouses have occupied this site. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1966

Historical Marker →

Things to Do in Centerville

day trip
Day Trip to Centerville 🎣 (FULL EPISODE) S14 E8

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Everything Near Centerville

174 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • Lightnin' Hopkins Built His First Guitar Out of a Cigar Box Here

    One of the most influential bluesmen in American history started life right here. Sam Hopkins, who the world would come to know as Lightnin', was born in Centerville in 1911 or 1912, the youngest child of Abe and…

  • The Stockade Fort That Held This Frontier

    A few miles south of where you are now, in the spring of 1840, Tennessee and Mississippi families pushed into the wedge of land between the Navasota and Trinity rivers, the first settlement north of the Old San Antonio…

  • Woody's Smokehouse and the Jerky Capital of I-45

    If you've ever driven I-45 between Houston and Dallas, you've almost certainly seen the signs for Woody's Smokehouse, and the big northbound store sits at 947 West St. Mary's Street in Centerville. The whole operation…

  • The Town Named for Sitting Dead Center

    You're rolling into a town whose entire name is a survey decision. When Leon County organized in 1846, it parked its government at Leona, down on the southern edge near the Old San Antonio Road. The problem was…

  • The Ranching Family That Gave the County a State Park

    If you want the family whose name runs deepest under modern Centerville, look to the Crains and the Sullivans, longtime ranching and banking people in this town. Their land wrapped the original Fort Boggy site, ground…

  • The Oldest Highway in Texas Skirts the County's Edge

    Down along the southern rim of Leon County runs a road far older than the interstate you may have driven in on. The Old San Antonio Road, the Spanish El Camino Real de los Tejas, was first blazed by expeditions starting…

  • The Night the Courthouse Burned to Its Vaults

    On the night of November 9, 1885, the courthouse on this square went up in flames. The building had stood since 1856, a brick structure replacing the town's first log courthouse, and it took with it the ordinary…

  • How Brick Boxes Saved the County's Memory

    Here's the engineering lesson hiding inside the Leon County courthouse story. When the 1856 courthouse burned in November 1885, the records that survived were the ones locked inside two brick vaults, while everything in…

  • The 1987 Tornado That Tore Across Two Counties

    On the afternoon of November 15, 1987, the worst tornado in Centerville's recorded history came grinding out of the southwest. Rated F3 on the old Fujita scale, it was part of a larger East Texas outbreak that day, a…

  • Centerville, TX

    Centerville's founding is rooted in the generosity of two individuals, Robert J Townes and D.C. Carrington, who donated 200 acres of land for the city's development. This act of donation in the 19th century laid the…

  • Two Jury Boxes, Two Witness Stands, and a Famous Complaint

    Step into the restored district courtroom on the Centerville square and you'll notice something most Texas courthouses don't have: two jury boxes and two witness stands instead of one of each, an unusual doubled layout…

  • Town Cafe: The County Seat's Home Kitchen

    Just off the I-45 exit, where Highway 7 runs into the old county-seat town, Town Cafe at 136 TX-75 is the kind of small-town diner that anchors a Texas square. It's not a chain and it's not trying to be, and that's…

Show all 174 nearby places
  • Hopkins, Sam [Lightnin'] · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Sam (Lightnin') Hopkins, blues singer and guitarist, was born in Centerville, Texas, on March 15, probably in 1911. Though some sources give his year of birth as 1912, his Social Security application listed the year as…

  • Halfway to Everywhere · 0.1 mi

    Centerville was named for sitting in the center of Leon County, not for Dallas or Houston, but it landed near the middle of that drive anyway. By Interstate Forty Five's mile markers, the Centerville exit is about a…

  • Centerville - Birthplace of Lightnin' Hopkins · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    Centerville, Texas was the birthplace of Sam 'Lightnin'' Hopkins, one of the greatest and most prolific blues guitarists in history, who brought Texas country blues to a worldwide audience.

  • Leon County Courthouse · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    Built 1887 of slate brick, locally made. One of oldest Texas courthouses still in its original state. County created in 1846. County seat was moved from Leona to Centerville in 1850. Two earlier courthouses have…

  • Gould, Robert Simonton · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Leon County, and right here in Centerville, a man named Robert Simonton Gould made a choice that sent him straight into the heart of the Civil War. A lawyer and judge, Gould was a member of the…

  • Centerville, TX (Leon County) · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Centerville, Texas, the county seat of Leon County. This town owes its existence to a legislative requirement for centrality! Back in 1850, the old county seat, Leona, was just too inconvenient.…

  • First United Methodist Church of Centerville · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Centerville's first United Methodist Church. Organized in 1850, the congregation met in a schoolhouse before building their first sanctuary in 1871. During World War II, the church's…

  • Texas HS Baseball Playoff Leaders 2026: Centerville (Centerville) · 0.4 mi

    Centerville put 3 players on the statewide leaderboards of the 2026 Texas high school baseball playoffs. Kolt Larsen had 60 strikeouts (1st in the state), and 11 stolen bases (5th in the state). Drew Larsen had 7 stolen…

  • Middleton, William B. · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    William B. Middleton, pioneer, sheriff, and legislator, was born on August 4, 1819, in Crawford County, Illinois. In 1837 his father moved the family to Texas, and they settled in Leon County. The family and eleven…

  • Whaley, David M. · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    David M. Whaley, druggist and Confederate infantry officer, was born in 1822 in Pennsylvania. He was the son of James Whaley. He trained to be a doctor and moved to Leon County, Texas, in 1853. He worked as a druggist,…

  • Lusk, Robert Orville · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Leon County, Texas, and right here is the area where Robert Orville Lusk settled. He arrived in Texas in 1833, fighting in the Texas Revolution, including the Grass Fight and the Siege of Bexar.…

  • Alley, Abraham · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once the wild Texas frontier. Right here, Abraham Alley arrived in 1822, landing on Galveston Island and making his way to the settlements. He was a farmer, a soldier in campaigns against…

  • Kittrell, Norman Goree · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once the old Twelfth Judicial District, a sprawling area that included Leon County. Right here, in the mid-1880s, a man named Norman Goree Kittrell was serving as both district attorney…

  • Old Bowling, TX · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Old Bowling is a rural community located at the end of Farm Road 1147 about fourteen miles west southwest of Centerville in western Leon County. Settlement in the region had begun by the late 1850s and early 1860s, and…

  • Concord, TX (Leon County) · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through western Leon County, and right here is the site of Concord. This community was established sometime between 1856 and 1893, but the name likely comes from the hometown of its first settlers:…

  • Leon County · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Leon County, a place shaped by the frontier struggles of the 1800s. Right here, settlers pushed into lands still claimed by Native American tribes. In 1837, after attacks like the one on Fort…

  • Bear Grass, TX · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Bear Grass is near the intersection of Farm roads 1512 and 1146, eight miles northwest of Jewett in the northwest corner of Leon County. The site was settled in the 1850s. The Bear Grass post office was established in…

  • Centerview, TX (Leon County) · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Centerview is a rural community located on Farm Road 811 about ten miles east of Centerville in southeastern Leon County. The settlement began in the late 1800s, and from 1886 to 1905 a post office operated under the…

  • Flo, TX · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Flo, also known as Kidd's Mill, Wheelock, Bethlehem, Oneta, New Hope, Oden(s), and Midway, is on Farm roads 1151 and 831 and Wheelock Creek twelve miles northeast of Centerville in central Leon County. There Thaddeus O.…

  • Flynn, TX · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Flynn is on Farm roads 977 and 39, twelve miles southwest of Centerville in Leon County. When the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway arrived in the area around 1906, Flynn developed by the line. In 1907 the Houston and…

  • Middleton, TX · 3.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Middleton is at the intersection of Farm roads 811 and 119, near Boggy Creek nine miles southeast of Centerville in southeastern Leon County. The community, named for William B. Middleton (the first sheriff of Leon…

  • The Birth of the Blues: Lightnin' Hopkins · 3.5 mi

    The world knows him as Lightnin' Hopkins, but here in Centerville, he was just Sam Hopkins, born in 1912. He grew up in a world of cotton fields and dusty roads, and his music became a living record of that life. He…

  • The Town the Train Passed By · 3.5 mi

    Look at the impressive Leon County Courthouse, built in 1887. That building is the reason Centerville survived. In the 1870s, when the International-Great Northern Railroad laid its tracks south, it was a death sentence…

  • The Buried Energy Beneath Your Wheels · 3.5 mi

    As you drive through the rolling hills of Leon County, you're traveling over a buried source of energy. Beneath the surface lies the Wilcox Group, a formation laid down in the Paleocene and Eocene, roughly fifty million…

  • The Concrete River: I-45 · 3.5 mi

    The highway you're on right now, Interstate 45, is the second great transportation story of Centerville. The first was the railroad that bypassed the town in the 1870s, stunting its growth. For nearly a hundred years,…

  • Keechi Creek · 3.9 mi

    Centerville sits cradled between two branches of Keechi Creek, and the branch Interstate 45 bridges just north of town once ran right past a sizable Native farming village. The Keechi, more properly the Kichai, a…

  • Fort Boggy, Site of · 4.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Fort Boggy, established back in 1840. This was the headquarters for the Boggy and Trinity Rangers, led by Captain Thomas N. B. Greer. A blockhouse was built here that year to serve as…

  • The Centerville Marine Who Stepped Between · 4.5 mi

    Interstate Forty Five through Leon County, between mile markers One Fifty One and One Sixty Eight, is the Sergeant Wade Daniel Wilson Memorial Highway. Wade Wilson played football and ran track at Centerville High…

  • Fort Boggy · 4.5 mi · Historical Marker

    Pioneers who settled in this area bout 1840 included members of the Middleton, Byrns, Staley, Erwin, Jones, Capp, Bloodworth, Philpott, Easton, Howell, and Hinton families. Nearby Kichai and Kickapoo Indian camps…

  • Leon County · 5.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Leon County, Texas, a place that got its start way back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1846</say-as>. It was carved out of Robertson County and officially organized just a few months…

  • First Court House Built in Leon County, Site of · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the very first courthouse built in Leon County. Back in 1846, a simple log building went up right here. It served as the heart of the young county, with officials like Chief Justice Geo.…

  • John Durst · 6.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Leon County, right where John Durst settled in 1844. He arrived in Texas way back in 1821, and by 1835, he owned the famous Old Stone Fort in Nacogdoches. But here in Leon County, his wife,…

  • The Boy With the Cigar Box Guitar · 7.2 mi

    Sam Lightnin' Hopkins was born in Centerville, just up the road, around nineteen eleven or twelve. His father, Abe, died in nineteen fifteen, and two of Lightnin's biographers say Abe was murdered, and that Sam's oldest…

  • The Dimery League · 7.2 mi

    Before there was a Leona, much of the land just east of here belonged to a free Black man named Allen Dimery. In February of eighteen thirty five, when Texas was still part of Mexico and slavery was outlawed, the…

  • Collins, Albert · 7.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through East Texas, maybe near Leona, the birthplace of a blues legend: Albert Collins. Born in 1932, Collins became known as the 'Iceman' and the 'Master of the Telecaster.' He didn't just play the…

  • The Silver in the Water Hole · 7.2 mi

    In nineteen oh one, Judge W. D. Wood wrote down a legend about the old Spanish road that ran near here. Two or three times a year, he wrote, caravans of pack mules loaded with silver came along the road between San…

  • Bob and Celia Bowers Founded Boggy · 7.2 mi

    West of Leona, near Flynn, a state marker tells how the Boggy community began in eighteen sixty five. Robert Bowers, called Bob, had been enslaved, and his wife, Celia North Bowers, was of the Keechi people, who had…

  • Shot Dead in His Tracks · 7.2 mi

    In November of eighteen fifty nine, a neighbor named Christopher Goodman wrote to his brother in New York: there has been some more killings going on here. A man by the name of Lewis Durst, a wealthy man, was shot dead…

  • The Sunday Tornado · 7.2 mi

    On a Sunday afternoon, the fifteenth of November, nineteen eighty seven, a tornado two hundred yards wide touched down in western Madison County and tracked north past Mecca to the Leon County line northeast of…

  • The Judge From Leona's First Court · 7.2 mi

    Henry Jewett was a Cambridge educated lawyer who had been private secretary to President Mirabeau Lamar, and he practiced at the very first court held here at Leona, in October of eighteen forty six. He became the…

  • Olmsted Got a Dog in Centerville · 7.2 mi

    On the third of January, eighteen fifty four, Frederick Law Olmsted, the man who later designed Central Park, came through Centerville with his brother, lost on a cow track road. They spent the night at the Centreville…

  • The Night the Stars Fell · 7.2 mi

    Leona is Spanish for lioness, and the lion in the sky, Leo, gives its name to the Leonid meteor shower. Every November the Earth passes through dust left by a comet that circles the sun every thirty three years, and the…

  • The Lazy Male Lion Is a Myth · 7.2 mi

    Leona is Spanish for lioness, and there's a lion myth worth fixing. The usual story is that lionesses do all the hunting while the males lie around. The National Zoo does say females are the main hunters and the males…

  • America's Lost Lion · 7.2 mi

    Leona is Spanish for lioness, and North America once had lions of its own. During the last Ice Age, the American lion ranged from southern Alaska to southern Mexico and from California to Maryland. It was about a…

  • Ponce de León Never Looked for the Fountain · 7.2 mi

    Leon County is named either for Martín De León or, as another story goes, for a yellow wolf that settlers called a león. It is not named for Ponce de León. But since we're on the name: in fifteen thirteen, Juan Ponce de…

  • Leona's First Church and the Boy Named Jerry · 7.2 mi

    In January of eighteen forty six, a frontier Baptist preacher named Z. N. Morrell preached at Leona, and on the first Sunday of February he organized a church here with eight or nine members. He rode sixty miles every…

  • The Land Stealer · 7.2 mi

    In eighteen oh nine, a trader reported that the main village of the Kichai people, with sixty warriors, stood near where Leona is now. An old county history says the Kichai called the surveyor's compass the land…

  • Two Ways Captain Greer Died · 7.2 mi

    Thomas Greer helped work one of the Twin Sisters cannons at San Jacinto, and later settled in this country near Fort Boggy. How he died depends on who you read. The Handbook of Texas says he was killed in June of…

  • The Soldiers Outside Centerville · 7.2 mi

    After the Civil War, two companies of Black federal soldiers were stationed outside Centerville to back up the Freedmen's Bureau, and according to the Handbook of Texas they were attacked several times. One soldier who…

  • Lightnin' Comes Home on Film · 7.2 mi

    In the late nineteen sixties, the filmmaker Les Blank followed Lightnin' Hopkins home for a short documentary called The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins, shot in Houston and in Centerville, with Lightnin' joking…

  • Durst, Bruno · 7.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Leon County, the home of Bruno Durst. Born in 1832, Durst was a farmer, a Texas Ranger, and a Confederate officer who saw action in major Civil War battles like Vicksburg and Mansfield. After the…

  • Something on All Fours by Boggy Creek · 7.2 mi

    In June of two thousand, a woman living in an old Victorian house between Farm to Market eleven nineteen and Boggy Creek, east of Leona, reported ghostly howls at night. When she went out to chase off coyotes, something…

  • Middleton, William. B. · 7.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Leona area, where William B. Middleton lived out his days. Middleton wasn't just any pioneer; he was the very first sheriff of Leon County! Before that, he was a participant in the Mier…

  • Birthplace of the 'Iceman' · 8.5 mi

    In 1932, in a sharecropper's cabin somewhere in this small community, one of the world's most unique musical voices was born. His name was Albert Collins, and he would become a blues legend. Known as 'The Iceman' and…

  • The Lost County Seat · 8.5 mi

    For five brief, shining years, Leona was the center of the universe in this part of Texas. When Leon County was organized in 1846, Leona was chosen as its first county seat. A log courthouse went up, and all official…

  • Concord Schools · 8.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Robbins, where formal schools operated in the Concord area for nearly a century. Starting in the late 1870s, education evolved from a single teacher to a two-story brick building by 1920. The…

  • Evans Chapel Church · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the Evans Chapel community, named for settlers who arrived in 1845. In the mid-1880s, residents decided they needed a church and school. The original Evans Chapel United Methodist Church was built…

  • Concord Missionary Baptist Church · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Concord Missionary Baptist Church, founded way back on April 21, 1855. Pioneer settlers organized this church before their community even had a name. Isaac Burleson donated the land,…

  • The Gamblers Kept Coming · 9.6 mi

    By the 1940s there was barely a town left out here, but the place still had a reputation. Gamblers and sportsmen drove out to this crossroads for the horse racing and the card games. That was the entertainment on offer,…

  • Named After The Guy Who Owned The Store · 9.6 mi

    Nobody got creative with this one. The store belonged to a man named Guy, the post office opened inside it in 1871, and the settlement simply took the storekeeper's name whole. The first postmaster was Miss Mary J.…

  • One Hundred, Then Twenty-Five, Then Twenty · 9.6 mi

    Watch the census numbers do a full collapse and a partial recovery. One hundred people in 1884, still 100 in 1890, then 25 by 1892. Back up to 128 by 1904, down to 50 by the 1930s, and 20 by 2009. The post office quit…

  • Gin, Gristmill, Blacksmith, Gone · 9.6 mi

    Through the 1890s this was a working crossroads. A cotton gin, a gristmill, a blacksmith shop, a general store, and both a Baptist and a Methodist congregation. By 1907 there were six schools operating in the…

  • Two Mile Paradise Cemetery · 9.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving near Leona, in Leon County. This is the Two Mile Paradise Cemetery, established around 1870. It was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2008.

  • Boggy Community · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Leon County, heading towards Flynn. Look around you – you're passing through the historic Boggy Community. Established in 1865, this settlement was founded by Robert Bowers, a former slave, and…

  • Brushy Cemetery · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through eastern Leon County, near where the Yarborough family settled in the 1850s after moving from Alabama. Five Yarborough sons served the Confederacy in the Civil War. Two of them, Wade and William,…

  • The Saloon The Wives Burned Down · 11.4 mi

    Before the railroad tidied things up, this crossroads answered to a nickname it earned honestly. A saloon here was called Bug's Scuffle, and the town went by that name unofficially for years. Leon County remembrances…

  • Named For A Man Who Never Came · 11.4 mi

    The man this town is named for probably never stood on this ground. Edward J. Flynn was an official with the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway, and when the line came through Leon County around 1906, the settlement here…

  • The Town That Walked To The Tracks · 11.4 mi

    This town used to sit two miles east of here and answer to Boggy. From about 1860, Boggy had two general stores, a cotton gin, and a post office tucked inside the Cozart brothers' store. Then the railroads reached Leon…

  • There Was A Chair Factory Here · 11.4 mi

    Count the buildings you can see, then consider that in 1920 this place had a chair factory. It also had two churches, a high school, a cotton gin and gristmill, a two story hotel, a leather shop, a lumberyard, a…

  • Hattie Barnes Adkisson · 11.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Jewett, and right here is a town that made history in 1920. Disenchanted with their officials, the citizens elected Hattie Adkisson and five other women as mayor and aldermen. Jewett became one of…

  • Smith, Manaen Turnbull · 11.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site where Manaen T. Smith lived out his days in Jewett. Born in Georgia in 1802, he came to Texas way back in 1822. He fought in the Texas Army, even participating in the Siege of Bexar in…

  • The Iron Claw Was Born in Jewett · 12.1 mi

    On August 16, 1929, Jack Barton Adkisson was born right here in Jewett, the man the wrestling world would come to know as Fritz Von Erich. He threw discus and played football at SMU, got a brief look from the NFL's…

  • Little Flock Cemetery · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Little Flock Cemetery, a burial ground with roots stretching back to 1854 when the Little Flock Baptist Church first formed nearby. The cemetery itself began seeing burials around 1860, with Meedie…

  • Pushwater Plays the Flood · 12.2 mi

    Jewett's own Pushwater is a family country band. Jesse Duke sings lead, his brother Eddie plays lead guitar, their father Jerry plays bass, and their cousin John Sunkes plays percussion and mandolin. In early June of…

  • Alexander, Alger [Texas] · 12.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through East Texas, maybe near Jewett, where a blues legend was born. Alger 'Texas' Alexander wasn't just a singer; he was a voice for the working man, born in 1900. He worked railroads and farms,…

  • Purcell, Mabelle Agnes Umland · 12.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through East Texas, perhaps near Jewett. Right here, in the early 1900s, a young Mabelle Umland graduated from high school. She'd moved here with her family after the devastating Galveston hurricane of…

  • Old Bowling School and Masonic Lodge · 12.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Old Bowling School and Masonic Lodge, built by settlers around 1860. This building served as a central hub for the community, hosting meetings and gatherings. Even today, a reunion is…

  • Jewett Methodist Church · 12.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Jewett, Texas, where Methodists found their spiritual home over a century ago. It all started in 1872, with services held in the home of William and Patience Ellis. Circuit rider James J. Davis…

  • Jewett, TX · 12.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Jewett, a town born from the railroad. In 1871, the International Railroad Company laid out this community, naming it for Judge Henry J. Jewett. It quickly became a hub, with a post office, a…

  • James and Julia Anderson House · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former home of Captain James Anderson, a man who saw the end of the Civil War firsthand. Born in Ohio, Anderson settled in Leon County before enlisting in the Confederate Army in 1861. He served…

  • Braniff International Flight 542 · 13.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a devastating air disaster. On September 29, 1959, Braniff International Flight 542, a Lockheed Electra, suffered a catastrophic structural failure in its left wing just miles from here.…

  • The Night a Brand-New Airliner Fell Out of the Sky Over Buffalo · 13.7 mi

    On the night of September 29, 1959, people around Buffalo heard an explosion overhead and then saw a fireball drop out of the dark. Braniff International Flight 542, a Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop bound from Houston…

  • The Buffalo Crash That Forced Engineers to Rethink the Whole Airplane · 13.7 mi

    What fell on the White farm here turned into one of aviation's great engineering detective stories. For six months after Braniff 542 broke up over Buffalo, Civil Aeronautics Board investigators knew the left wing had…

  • Gould, Colonel Robert Simonton · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Buffalo, Leon County, and just passed the marker for Colonel Robert Simonton Gould. He arrived in Texas in 1850, becoming the first district attorney and later a judge. When Texas seceded, Gould…

  • Forging the Future From Scrap · 14.6 mi

    The Nucor steel mill about fourteen miles west of town, over at Jewett, isn’t just a factory; it’s a marvel of materials science and engineering. It’s what’s known as a 'mini-mill,' and its key technology is the…

  • The Interstate Lifeline · 14.6 mi

    The railroad may have built Buffalo — the International-Great Northern came through in 1872 — but the interstate is what carries it now. As you cruise along I-45, you're on the town's modern lifeline. When this…

  • The Town the Railroad Drew on Paper Before the Buffalo Were Gone · 14.6 mi

    This stretch of Leon County didn't grow up organically around a courthouse or a ford. It was platted on paper. In 1871 and 1872 surveyors laid out a thirty-block townsite here specifically to meet the oncoming…

  • Buffalo, TX · 14.6 mi

    Buffalo, Texas. The name itself speaks of a time when the land looked quite different. It wasn't chosen arbitrarily, you see. Back in the 1870s, when folks started settling this area, the rolling hills weren't just…

  • Buffalo, TX (Henderson County) · 14.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Henderson County, near where Buffalo used to be the county seat. Imagine this: back in the Republic of Texas days, hunters would kill buffalo and drag them down to the Trinity River right here. By…

  • Buffalo, TX (Leon County) · 14.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Buffalo, Texas, a town born from the wild west. Back in 1872, this area was known for the massive herds of buffalo that roamed the plains. When the International-Great Northern Railroad pushed…

  • First Baptist Church of Buffalo · 14.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Buffalo, a town that got its start with the railroad back in 1877. That same year, fifteen people gathered at the Buffalo Academy to start a Baptist congregation. It joined the Trinity River…

  • From Millions To Three Hundred · 14.9 mi

    You're passing through Buffalo, Texas, named for the bison, and this is the part of that animal's story that turns somber, then hopeful. It reaches far beyond this little Leon County town. Before the eighteen hundreds,…

  • It Was Never A Buffalo · 14.9 mi

    Standing here in Buffalo, Texas, the name begs an obvious question, so let's actually talk about the word buffalo for a minute, because there's a mix-up baked right into it. Strictly speaking, the animals that gave this…

  • Built For The Open Country · 14.9 mi

    You're rolling through Buffalo, Texas, a town named straight for the animal, so here's what the bison actually is. It is the largest land mammal in North America. A full-grown bull can top two thousand pounds and stand…

  • The Other Buffalo's Mystery · 14.9 mi

    Right here in Buffalo, Texas, the name's origin is settled, but let me give a nod to the other Buffalo, the big one up on Lake Erie, because it makes a myth-versus-fact twist. People assume both towns were named the…

  • Powering Texas from Jewett's Backyard · 14.9 mi

    A few miles northwest of Jewett, over the county line in Limestone County, sits a stunning example of industrial engineering: the NRG Limestone Electric Generating Station. This massive power plant was built where it is…

  • The Herds That Named a Town · 14.9 mi

    Here's a town that wears its history right in its name, and it's exactly what you'd guess. Buffalo, Texas, up here in northern Leon County, was laid out in eighteen seventy-one and eighteen seventy-two as the…

  • One Word, A Whole Country · 14.9 mi

    So think about how much a single, slightly wrong word can carry. Pull on the name Buffalo, Texas, and the whole thread unspools. It leads to an animal that isn't really a buffalo at all, but a bison, misnamed by…

  • From Cotton Fields to Steel Beams · 14.9 mi

    If you drive out of Jewett on Highway 79, you can't miss the sprawling industrial complex of the Nucor steel mill. It has been here a lot longer than people assume. Nucor opened it in 1975, its third mini-mill in six…

  • A Small Man, a Big Man, and the Hardins · 14.9 mi

    On the twenty fifth of March, eighteen eighty two, in the town of Jewett, about eight miles southwest of Buffalo, a big man named Hiram Miller attacked a small man named Robert Linson, without provocation, according to…

  • When The Rails Made The Town · 14.9 mi

    Up in northern Leon County, the town we now call Buffalo, Texas, moved its goods the slow way before the rails arrived. Residents shipped cotton down the rivers and drove their livestock overland to market, which is a…

  • Post Oak Savannah Crossroads · 14.9 mi

    Look at where you actually are for a second. Buffalo sits at a crossroads, where United States highways seventy-nine and seventy-five meet Interstate forty-five, about fourteen miles north of Centerville in northern…

  • Made by the Railroad · 14.9 mi

    You're looking at the reason Jewett exists. In 1871 this spot was undeveloped land, and the established settlements in this part of Leon County were elsewhere. Then the International Railroad Company - the line that…

  • The Bear Grass Coal Mines · 14.9 mi

    Long before the massive power plant arrived, this country had its first affair with coal. Eight miles northwest of Jewett, in the corner of Leon County, sat a settlement called Bear Grass, and in 1906 the Bear Grass…

  • The Stampede That Closes Out Every Summer · 14.9 mi

    If you roll through Buffalo around Labor Day, you may catch the town at its loudest: the Buffalo Stampede. It's the community's signature celebration, a tradition that goes back at least to the 1990s, when Buffalo also…

  • Jewett, TX · 14.9 mi

    Laid out in 1871 by the International Railroad Company, Jewett has a rich history tied to the expansion of the railroads in Texas. This development played a key role in shaping the city's growth and its connection to…

  • The Lady Bison's Championship · 14.9 mi

    In two thousand two, the Buffalo girls' basketball team won the Class Two A state championship, beating Abernathy forty eight to forty three. For a small town on Interstate forty five, it's the kind of night people…

  • The Traffic Jam That Made a Band · 14.9 mi

    Buffalo, Texas, is named for the buffalo herds that once roamed here, but the word also named one of the great rock bands. In nineteen sixty six, Neil Young and a bass player named Bruce Palmer drove from Toronto to Los…

  • Who Invented the Buffalo Wing? · 14.9 mi

    Buffalo, Texas, shares a name with Buffalo, New York, and Buffalo, New York, gave us the chicken wing. Or did it? In nineteen eighty, the writer Calvin Trillin set out to write a short history of the Buffalo wing and…

  • Buffalo Bill's Royal Flush · 14.9 mi

    One more Buffalo, and this one had a Wild West show. In eighteen eighty seven, William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill, took his whole Wild West show to London for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, and the Queen herself asked for…

  • The Town Named for a Dog · 14.9 mi

    East of Buffalo is the little community of Flo, and it went through more names than most towns do: Kidd's Mill, Wheelock, Bethlehem, Oneta, New Hope, Odens, Oden and Midway, among others. In eighteen ninety one it got…

  • A Sentence Made of One Word · 14.9 mi

    Here's a word game for a town called Buffalo. In English, buffalo is three words at once: the animal, the city in New York, and a verb meaning to bully or confuse. That means you can build a real sentence using nothing…

  • The Thing in the Trinity Bottom · 14.9 mi

    Here's one for the folklore file. In a report sent to a Bigfoot research group in nineteen ninety eight, someone passed along a story from the Leon County Trinity River bottoms back in the fall of nineteen thirty: quail…

  • Cotton, Cattle, and the Last Passenger Train · 15.0 mi

    For its first century Buffalo lived and died by the rails it was built for. When the depot opened, the town finally had a fast way to move the two things this part of Leon County produced: cotton and cattle. By the…

  • The Voice of Slayer Runs Cattle Outside Buffalo · 15.1 mi

    It is one of the unlikeliest facts in Leon County: the frontman of Slayer, one of the loudest and most influential thrash-metal bands ever, lives the quiet life of a Texas rancher right here. Tom Araya, the band's…

  • The First Mayor and the Charter That Slipped Away · 15.1 mi

    Buffalo's name comes from the animal, not a founding family, so the town has no single namesake clan to point to, but its civic founders left their names in the record. When residents finally organized a municipal…

  • Tubb Cemetery · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Tubb Cemetery, a final resting place for folks who settled this part of Leon County. The first marked grave belongs to Joel D. Leathers, who died in <say-as interpret-as="date"…

  • Lignite: The Hidden Power Beneath Your Tires · 15.4 mi

    As you travel through Marquez, you're driving over a massive, hidden source of energy. The geology here, part of the Wilcox Group, is packed with lignite, a soft brownish-black coal. It isn't as rich as the hard coal of…

  • The Railroad Crossing That Built a Town · 15.4 mi

    The reason Normangee exists is a decision made by railroad men over a century ago. This spot became a station on the Houston and Texas Central in 1905, and the town took its name from Norman G. Kittrell, a prominent…

  • Engineering a Town at the Crossroads · 15.4 mi

    The existence of Normangee is a triumph of early twentieth-century transportation engineering. The town sits where two rail lines meet, a point chosen by surveying and economic calculation rather than by accident. The…

  • Normangee, TX · 15.4 mi

    The history of Normangee, Texas, is closely tied to the expansion of the railroads. In the early 1900s, the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway and the Houston and Texas Central Railway were built between Houston and…

  • Marquez, TX · 15.4 mi

    Marquez is a diverse community with a rich ethnic heritage. According to the 2000 census, the racial makeup of the city was 81.82% White, 8.64% African American, 1.36% Native American, and 8.18% from other races.…

  • A Country High School Built Like a College Campus · 15.8 mi

    The Buffalo Bison play out of a high school with a quirk you won't find in many towns this size. When the current Buffalo High School building opened in 2010 at 1724 North Buffalo Avenue, its designers laid out the…

  • The Pitching Ace Who Vanished Into a New Name · 16.3 mi

    Marquez can claim one of the strangest lives in baseball history. Dave K. Brown was born here on June 9, 1897, the youngest of nine children of farm laborers, and he became one of the leading pitchers of early Negro…

  • The Disposable Syringe That Was Killing Cattle Embryos · 16.3 mi

    Out here in the cattle country around Marquez, one of Texas's stranger science detective stories played out in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Granada Genetics ran a major commercial cattle embryo-transfer operation in…

  • The Railroad Town Built on a Woman's Land · 16.3 mi

    The little crossroads you're rolling through near U.S. 79 and State Highway 7 didn't grow up around a wagon trail. Marquez was deliberately laid out in 1871 as a station on the International-Great Northern Railroad, and…

  • The Fire That Nearly Wiped Marquez Off the Map · 16.3 mi

    Stand in what's left of Marquez's small commercial center and picture December 1920, when a major fire tore through the business district and nearly erased it. A period newspaper put it bluntly: the little town, it…

  • The Private Academy That Held a Third of the Town · 16.3 mi

    In 1902, Marquez had a remarkable year for such a small place. The town got telephone service and, in the same stretch of confidence and modernization, opened Leon Academy, a private school that enrolled 166 students.…

  • The Last Building of a Vanished Settlement · 16.3 mi

    A few miles from Marquez, off FM 1147, stands the Old Bowling School and Masonic Lodge, a weathered two-story building settlers raised around 1860. Over the years it served as a school, a church, a community meeting…

  • The Lake Built to Cool Power Plants · 16.3 mi

    Southeast of Marquez, on the upper Navasota River, lies Lake Limestone, and despite how natural it looks, it's entirely engineered. The Brazos River Authority completed it in 1978 as a water-supply reservoir, and here's…

  • The Store That Was Only a Window · 16.3 mi

    Northwest of Marquez once sat Long Hollow, a small farming community whose heart was a combination school, church, and community center. After that building burned in 1918, residents rallied and put up a larger…

  • The Brandin Iron Cafe · 16.3 mi

    If you want a meal in Marquez that isn't manufactured for tourists, the Brandin Iron Cafe at roughly 337 West Carrington Avenue is the genuine local stop. It's a small-town diner of the classic Texas kind, the sort of…

  • Rogers Prairie · 16.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the original site of Rogers Prairie, a Texas settlement that started way back in 1835. Robert Rogers, who received a land grant from Mexico, set up home here, and soon others joined him. A whole…

  • Cobbs Creek Missionary Baptist Church · 16.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Cobbs Creek Missionary Baptist Church, founded way back in 1883. A small group gathered to organize the church, named for its location near Cobbs Creek. Reverend E.W. Mitchell became its…

  • Marquez, TX · 16.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Marquez, Texas, a town that owes its existence to the railroad and a woman's name. In 1871, this spot was laid out as a station on the International-Great Northern Railroad. It was named for María…

  • Elwood Methodist Church · 16.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Midway, and just ahead is the Elwood Methodist Church. It began way back in the <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1840</say-as>s, when this community was called French. Services first took…

  • Allphin Cemetery · 17.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Elwood, and just off the road is Allphin Cemetery. It started in 1854, not with a death, but with a discovery. Ransom Allphin, who'd farmed this land since 1835, was digging a well when he hit…

  • Long Hollow Community · 17.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through what used to be Long Hollow, a community named for the pioneer Long family. It was built around a schoolhouse that went up in the 1880s, which also served as the town's church and community…

  • Bethesda Cemetery · 17.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Bethesda Cemetery, a burial ground that started as a small family plot in the 1840s. It sits on land originally granted to Thomas Moore by the Republic of Texas. While Moore's grave is the oldest…

  • Heath, William Womack · 17.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Grimes County, and right near Normangee, you're passing through the hometown of William Womack Heath. Born in 1903, Heath had a career that spanned law, education, and public service, all before…

  • Normangee, TX · 17.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Normangee, a town born from the railroad boom. Back in 1905, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad laid tracks right here, and soon after, the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway joined in. These…

  • The Town That Rolled Itself to the Railroad · 17.8 mi

    Before there was a Normangee, the commercial heart of this stretch of Leon County sat about two miles east at Rogers Prairie, a settlement strung along the Old San Antonio Road with a church, a school, a cotton gin, a…

  • The Town That Voted Itself Out of Existence · 17.8 mi

    Normangee boomed fast. It incorporated in 1913 with boundaries that straddled the Leon and Madison county line, and by 1914 the place reportedly held 1,100 residents, two banks, two cotton gins, hotels, a machine shop,…

  • The Preacher's Plane That Came Apart in the Storm · 17.8 mi

    About three miles north of Normangee, on November 2, 1982, a Cessna P210 flew into weather it could not survive. At the controls was Lester Roloff, the nationally known fundamentalist radio preacher, with four women…

  • Three Roads Stacked on the Same Ground · 17.8 mi

    Drive FM 39 through Normangee and you are traveling three transportation systems at once, layered on top of one another across three centuries. First came El Camino Real, a corridor of trails that wandered to follow…

  • The Iceman Worked a Ranch Outside Normangee · 17.8 mi

    Before he was a blues legend, Albert Collins was a ranch hand near Normangee. Born just down the road in nearby Leona, Collins would become one of the most influential Texas guitarists who ever lived, nicknamed "The…

  • A Town of a Few Hundred Wins State · 17.8 mi

    For a town that counts its population in the hundreds, Normangee owns one of the more improbable sports stories in Texas high school basketball. In 2004, the Normangee Panthers won the Class A Division I state…

  • The Ballgame Where Lightnin' Met the Blues · 17.8 mi

    In the fall of 1927, at a picnic where Normangee boys played baseball against Leona boys, a teenager named Sam Hopkins watched his older cousin climb onto the bed of a truck and sing. The cousin was Alger 'Texas'…

  • El Camino Real · 17.9 mi · Historical Marker

    First blazed in 1691 by Captain Don domingo Teran De Los Rios first provincial governor of Texas. In an expedition officially directed by Father Fray damian Massanet O-F-M Apostolic Missionary and explorer in Texas. the…

  • The Restaurant That Still Looks Like Somebody's House · 17.9 mi

    Drive Main Street in Normangee and you could roll right past The Place at 434 Main Street without realizing it serves food at all, because from the road it still looks like an ordinary private home. That is exactly the…

  • The King's Highway Through Normangee · 18.0 mi

    Near 371 West Old San Antonio Road, about 400 feet southwest of FM 39, an eight-foot pink-granite marker rises beside the highway. Erected in 1936 for the Texas Centennial, it commemorates one of the oldest roads in…

  • El Camino Real · 18.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving along a road that's been a lifeline for Texas for over 300 years! This is El Camino Real, the King's Highway. It was first blazed in 1691 by Domingo Terán de los Ríos, the first provincial governor of…

  • Greenbrier Cemetery · 18.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Greenbrier Cemetery, a place born from both community and tragedy. It started in 1884 as land for a school, but after the Colwell's daughter Callie died in 1888, part of the land became this…

  • Hilltop Lakes, TX · 18.2 mi

    Hilltop Lakes is nestled in southwestern Leon County, 27 miles southwest of Centerville, the county seat. The community is built around several artificial lakes, including Mirror Lake, Swan Lake, Kickapoo Lake, Cherokee…

  • A Subdivision With Its Own Runway · 18.2 mi

    There is a paved runway out here in the Leon County post oaks. Three thousand and eighteen feet of asphalt, forty feet wide, running north and south across sixty acres at five hundred and two feet of elevation. It is…

  • Every Lake Out Here Is on Purpose · 18.2 mi

    None of this water is natural. Somebody in the middle 1960s looked at a stretch of rolling post oak country drained by Running Creek, which flows south into the Navasota River, and dammed the creek and its side draws…

  • The Swimming Pool Is Shaped Like Texas · 18.2 mi

    The swimming pool here is shaped like Texas. Not roughly. The actual outline, panhandle and all. It is one line on an amenity list that also includes stables, sand volleyball, disc golf, a teen center, and a library.…

  • A Town That Had to Build Itself First · 18.2 mi

    This place runs like a small town because it had to construct one from scratch. The golf course opened in 1970. The post office did not turn up until the middle 1980s. There is a volunteer fire department, emergency…

  • Bozeman Cemetery · 18.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Bozeman Cemetery, established way back in 1852. It's been recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery.

  • Ruby Parker and the Cemetery Outside Town · 18.9 mi

    On August 23, 1994, this quiet farming town became the target of an armed crew of a dozen conspirators who had driven up from the Houston area to rob the Normangee State Bank. They gathered first at Hopewell Cemetery…

  • Friendship Cemetery · 18.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Leon County, past Friendship Cemetery. This burial ground dates back to at least 1870, with the earliest dated marker for Josa Hood. Though time and vandals have taken their toll, descendants…

  • The King's Highway's Other Name · 19.4 mi

    State Highway Twenty One follows much of the Old San Antonio Road, also called the Camino Real and the King's Highway. And the old route carries an extra name. A state highway minute order dated June twenty first,…

Explore Centerville on the Map
All music from Texas → Find another town Vote on city songs

Sign up for the free newsletter

Longer stories, research notes, photos, videos, and where the road goes next. Free, and no iPhone needed.

Subscribe free