County History
How Center became the county seat of Shelby County
Shelby County was formed in 1836 and named for a Revolutionary War hero, and its county seat moved from Shelbyville to Center in 1866.
The Republic of Texas created Shelby County in 1836. It was named for Isaac Shelby. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and later governor of Kentucky. The county covers 791 square miles of East Texas timberland along the Sabine River.
Shelbyville was the first county seat. In 1866, voters moved it to a new town called Center. The town was named for being near the geographic center of the county.
People settled here in the early 1800s. Before Texas independence, the area was organized under the Mexican government as Tenehaw Municipality. From 1840 to 1844, a violent fight over land claims called the Regulator-Moderator War disrupted the county.
Corn and cotton were the main crops early on. By the late 1900s, livestock, timber, and recreation at Toledo Bend had replaced row crops as the main economic drivers. The Handbook of Texas covers this history in detail.
Source to confirm: Handbook of Texas — Shelby County