Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Center, TX

Center is the county seat of Shelby County in deep East Texas, situated almost exactly at the county's geographic center — which is how it got its name — and only about 17 miles from the Louisiana border.

The settlement that became Center was originally called White Cottage, where a post office was established on April 6, 1848.

After a state law pushed county seats toward the geographic center of their counties and voters approved moving the seat from Shelbyville, county clerk R. L. Parker led a group of men who broke into the Shelbyville courthouse one night in 1866, seized all the county records, and carried them to a log cabin at White Cottage; the community was soon renamed Center.

In 1869 Confederate veteran Jesse Amason donated fifty acres of land for the Center townsite.

Center's Shelby County Courthouse, completed in November 1885 after the previous courthouse burned in 1882, still stands and serves the county today.

Center was incorporated by an election on January 9, 1892, and it remained a general-law city until voters adopted a home-rule charter in 1984.

Shelby County, which Center governs, was one of the original counties organized by the Republic of Texas in 1837 and was named for Isaac Shelby, a Revolutionary War hero and governor of Kentucky.

Center's population grew from just 859 in 1900 to 5,678 in 2000, and the 2020 census counted 5,221 residents; back in 2000 the city had 2,034 households.

Center sits at the crossroads of U.S. Highway 96 and Texas State Highways 7 and 87 and covers about 6.2 square miles.