Oakwood is a small town in East Texas that straddles Leon and Freestone counties. It sits on U.S. Highway 79 near the Trinity River, about eighteen miles southwest of Palestine and fifteen miles northeast of Buffalo. Interstate 45 is roughly a twenty-minute drive away near Buffalo, putting the town within convenient reach of the corridor between Dallas and Houston. The 2020 census recorded 389 residents. The community has long been a small agricultural and school town. By 1989 Oakwood had a population of about 576, a class-A high school, nine churches, and eight businesses; the count settled to 471 by 2000 before easing to its current level. The town has retained its own school district, which keeps the school at the center of community life, even as its commercial footprint has remained modest. The setting is the rolling hills of Leon County, a landscape of farms, pasture, and timberland near the Trinity River. That terrain gives the area a gentler, more scenic character than the flat Blackland Prairie farther west, and it has long attracted buyers looking for country land. The Trinity River adds fishing and river access a short drive from town, while the surrounding bottomlands support hunting and other rural pursuits. Oakwood suits residents who want a quiet, low-density rural lifestyle with the convenience of U.S. 79 and I-45 nearby. Palestine and Buffalo supply the surrounding services, with Palestine offering the region's historic and cultural anchor. The town itself remains unhurried and small in scale, appealing to those who prefer East Texas country over subdivision living.