Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Batesville, TX

Batesville is an unincorporated census-designated place in Zavala County in South Texas, set on the Leona River at the junction of U.S. Highway 57 and Farm Road 117, about fifteen miles east of La Pryor.

The community grew out of a ranch developed around 1869 by the Bates brothers — Elijah, Felix, and Finis Bates — and the settlement was first known as Bates Ranch or Bates Ditch.

Elijah Anderson Bates chartered the Comanche Irrigation Company in 1876, launching the region's first irrigation project on land granted to the brothers by the state of Texas.

When Zavala County was organized in 1884, Batesville became its first county seat, and the first county courthouse, completed in 1885, was built of bricks made from Leona River soil on land donated by Elijah Bates.

Batesville lost the county seat to Crystal City in 1928, and the old brick courthouse was eventually torn down in 1947.

By 1892 Batesville had an estimated 500 inhabitants, three churches, a gristmill, and three general stores gathered around its circular town plaza.

The 2020 census counted 787 residents in Batesville, down from 1,068 in 2010 and 1,313 in 1990, the first census in which it appeared as a census-designated place.

Batesville had 323 households in the 2020 census, and about 90 percent of its residents identified as Hispanic or Latino.

The first school in Batesville opened in 1884, and today the community is served by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District — younger students attend Batesville School locally, while older students travel to Morales Junior High School and Uvalde High School in Uvalde.