Centerville CDP (Fresno County), CA

Centerville is a Fresno County census-designated place about sixteen miles east of Fresno, on the old Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad route near the Kings River. The place has worn several names: Kings River, King River, Scottsburgh, and Scottsburg. In 1854, Scottsburg began at Poole's Crossing in the lowlands. W. W. Hills established Hills Ferry there in 1858, but the ferry and town were destroyed in the winter of 1861-62 and flooded again in 1867. After the second rebuild moved onto a bluff, the settlement took the name Centerville.

The bluff is the key to the local map: the community looks back toward the river crossing while sitting above the flood-prone lowlands. The Scottsburgh post office opened in 1856, closed, reopened in 1859, and closed for good in 1864, a tidy timeline for a place whose early shape kept changing. The 2020 census counted 378 residents, and Sanger Unified School District serves the CDP today. Centerville still carries the road, river, railroad, and ferry history of eastern Fresno County in one small named place.