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BATESVILLE,
TEXAS
Zavala
County, South Texas
Highway 57 and Farm Road 117
15 Miles E of La Pryor
21 Miles SE of Uvalde
27
Miles NE of Crystal City
Population:
1,298 (2000)
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The
courthouse square in Batesville
Photo courtesy Terry Jeanson, October 2005 |
History in a Pecan
Shell
Batesville was first settled in the 1860s with the namesake
Bates family arriving around 1869 and starting the Bates Ranch. The Leona River
was dammed in 1876, to irrigate crops. The 500 irrigated acres were then sold
off in small plots to farmers. After irrigation the community assumed the name
of Bate's Ditch and when Zavalla County was formed in 1884, the town took the
more dignified name of Batesville.
The county built its first courthouse
in Batesville in 1884, using mud from the Leona River to make bricks. A post office
was granted the same year. The town had a respectable population of 500 by the
early 1890s. |
| "This
is a photo of a picture of the 1885 Zavala County courthouse (in Batesville) that
hangs in the county clerk's office in the current
courthouse." - Terry Jeanson, April 2007 |
In
1927 Crystal City took over as Zavala county
seat, although Batesville's economy stayed strong. The population in the early
30s was down to 200 with only four businesses. Prosperity came after WWII when
increased irrigation was installed and the town was electrified.
The population
remained at 200 in 1947 but the droughts of the early and mid 1950s took its toll
and the irrigation system was neglected, resulting in the company losing its charter.
The 1963 population was estimated at 250 but fell to less than 200 by the 1970s
where it remained through the 1980s, increasing slowly to the current (2007) population
of 1,298. | |
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