Seat: Centerville · Buffalo, Jewett, Marquez
Leon County was organized in 1846, one of the original Texas counties of the early statehood era. It sits squarely on the I‑45 corridor between Houston and Dallas, with the county seat at Centerville, named in 1850 for its near‑exact position at the geographic center of the county.
Leon County’s current courthouse, built in 1885, is the third on its Centerville site. The first burned; the second was outgrown. Deed and probate records have been kept here with only short interruptions since the county’s organization.
Buffalo took its name from the herds that grazed the area before 1860. By the 1870s it was a major loading stop on the Houston & Texas Central Railway, cattle north, cotton south, and the surrounding ranchland still anchors much of the county’s surface economy.
The Old San Antonio Road, El Camino Real de los Tejas, was first marked by Spanish expeditions beginning in 1691 and ran from the Rio Grande to Natchitoches in Louisiana. The trail crossed the Trinity River near present‑day Madisonville, just south of Leon County, and its trace still shapes parts of the county’s road network and original land grants.
County seat: Centerville · Courthouse: 155 N. Cass Street, Centerville, TX 75833
For sovereignty-to-current chain of title work in Leon County, our title team pulls the deed records in person and reconciles them against the online index. Online date ranges vary by vendor and are not always complete — verify at the courthouse for closing-grade title work.
We’ll research the title at no cost and let you know what we find.