LIVINGSTON, TEXAS. Livingston, the county seat of Polk County, is at the junction of U.S. highways 190 and 59, State Highway 146, and Farm Road 1316, seventy-five miles north of Houston in the southern part of the county. The area was acquired in 1835 by Moses L. Choate, who surveyed a townsite called Springfield in 1839. In 1846, when Polk County was delineated from northern Liberty County, the seat of government was established near the geographic center of the new county near Springfield. Choate donated more than 100 acres to the project on the condition that it be named the county seat. The post office, secured in 1847, was named Livingston in honor of Choate's hometown in Tennessee. In the early years the community served a largely agricultural area which produced primarily cotton and corn.