Lasara

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little Willacy County flavor. Way back when, this part of South Texas was carved out of something called the San Juan Carricitos Spanish land grant. That's old land, folks.

Deep-rooted land. And out of that grant, two men by the names of W. A.

Harding and Lamar Gill looked at this stretch of ground and saw a town waiting to happen. The year was 1926, and they got to work developing the townsite right here. Now, when it came time to name the place, they did what any sensible man with a good wife might do.

They honored the women. Laura Harding and Sara Gill. You take the first part of Laura and you take Sara whole, and you put them together, and you get Lasara.

That's the marker's own telling, not mine. The year 1926 was a busy one for this little community. A post office was established.

A Union Sunday School was organized. And the schoolhouse right at this very site was begun. Three big things in a single year, and the town was just getting warmed up.

Lasara School grew into something more than a place for lessons. It became a social center, a gathering point, the kind of place that holds a community together when everything else is spread out across the brush and the flatlands. The town built a name for itself as a center for cattle shipping too, moving livestock out of this rural corner of Willacy County.

And today, Lasara still stands as a focal point for the surrounding rural area. Not bad for a name stitched together from two women who never asked for the credit.

What the marker says

Formed out of the San Juan Carricitos Spanish land grant, the townsite of Lasara was developed in 1926 by W. A. Harding and Lamar Gill. The names of their wives, Laura Harding and Sara Gill, were combined to form the name of the town. During 1926, a post office was established, a Union Sunday School was organized, and the schoolhouse at this site was begun. Lasara School long has played an important role as a social center for community activities. The town, once a center for cattle shipping, continues to be a focal point for the surrounding rural area. (1985)