LESLIE, TEXAS. Leslie (Leslie Switch) was at the northeast edge of the site of present Brookshire, twenty-five miles from Hempstead in southern Waller County. The community was founded in 1878 and named for postmaster Robert Hugh Leslie, who also served as a ticket agent for the Texas Western Narrow Gauge Railroad, which ran from Houston to neighboring Pattison. Leslie was a fueling station for the railroad and by 1890 had eighty residents, two churches, a school, three general stores, and a gristmill and gin. When competition from the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad reduced the Texas Western's traffic, Leslie declined. The Leslie post office operated from 1879 until 1893, when a new office opened in nearby Brookshire. The old rail station disappeared.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mildred W. Abshier et al., Former Post Offices of Waller County (Hempstead, Texas: Waller County Historical Society, 1977). Waller County Historical Survey Committee, A History of Waller County, Texas (Waco: Texian, 1973).
