A local legend says Fenton's name was settled at a card table. Clark Dibble arrived from New York in 1834, and the spot where two Indian trails met on the Shiawassee River was known as Dibbleville. William M. Fenton and Robert LeRoy bought him out in 1837 and supposedly played poker to decide the naming, with the winner getting the town and the loser the main street. So the settlement became Fentonville, and its main street became LeRoy. The Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway arrived in 1856.

LeRoy Street grew into the town's commercial district, and the US-23 bypass of 1958 moved through traffic to the west. Local business centers on the South LeRoy area, once Dibbleville, and the North LeRoy business district.

The freeway then set the pattern for commerce. Silver Lake Road links downtown to US-23 and to the larger retail centers at the interchange, while Owen Road and Torrey Road provide neighboring exits. The City of Fenton and Fenton Township are separate governments, and the township holds the Lake Fenton area, so a Fenton mailing address does not settle which one has jurisdiction.