Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Lavaca, AR

Lavaca (pronounced lə-VAH-kə) is a city in Sebastian County, Arkansas, part of the Fort Smith metropolitan area, and today it functions largely as a bedroom community for Fort Smith.

Its roots reach back to 1821, when Major Benjamin Moore settled at Moore's Rock on the Arkansas River, cut a navigation channel through the bedrock at his own expense, built the first gristmill between Fort Smith and Little Rock, and raised some of the area's first cotton and tobacco.

The federal Military Road to Fort Smith ran directly through the earlier settlements of Military Grove and Oak Bower, and today's Arkansas Highway 96 follows that roadbed through Lavaca as its Main Street.

When the Arkansas Central Railroad built its depot west of Oak Bower in 1897, the town shifted to the present site, and Spanish-speaking railroad workers supposedly dubbed the cattle-filled fields 'La Vaca' — Spanish for 'the cow' — giving Lavaca its name.

Lavaca's first postmaster, James B. Harwood, registered the post office under the name Lavaca in 1881 after being told that another Arkansas town already held the name Oak Bower.

Lavaca was incorporated on August 18, 1919.

During the World War II era, local farmers developed the Lavacaberry, a boysenberry-raspberry hybrid grown on dozens of acres around town, and its brisk sales by rail and truck are credited with saving the town's economy.

The 2020 census counted 2,450 people in Lavaca, living in 922 households and 693 families, up from just 319 residents in 1930.

The Lavaca School District serves roughly 900 students on three campuses, and Lavaca High School was named a Bronze Medalist in U.S. News & World Report's 2012 Best High Schools rankings.

The Lavaca Performing Arts Center, completed in 2010 on the Lavaca High School campus, doubles as a venue for community events.