Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Amargosa, TX

Amargosa is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in northwestern Jim Wells County, Texas, sitting on Amargosa Creek about a mile off U.S. Highway 281 and eight miles northwest of Alice, the county seat.

Amargosa began as a ranch settlement on the Tinaja de Lara grant, to which Manuel Barrera of Mier, Tamaulipas, received title on September 28, 1836.

By 1849 Amargosa was a prominent South Texas ranch, well stocked with sheep, goats, and horses and dealing in wool and hides, according to the Handbook of Texas.

The settlement had grown to about 100 residents by 1877, when a school was established there to serve forty children.

Amargosa faded as a trade center after the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway bypassed the community in 1898.

Before the 2010 census, Amargosa was grouped with nearby Owl Ranch as the Owl Ranch-Amargosa census-designated place, which counted 527 residents in 2000, about 94 percent of them Hispanic or Latino.

Counted on its own for the first time in 2010, Amargosa had 291 residents, rising slightly to 305 in the 2020 census, spread across large households that average about 3.7 people, and its subdivisions include the Sanchez Addition Colonia.