Biohazard and Pathogen Disinfection in Lasara, TX

Lasara is an unincorporated census-designated place (CDP) in western Willacy County in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, about eight miles west of Raymondville on State Highway 186.

The land under Lasara was once part of Spanish and Mexican land grants with names like Las Mesteñas, Pititas, La Abra and San Juan de Carricitos.

The town was laid out in 1924 and named by blending the names of Laura Harding and Sarah Gill, the wives of early settlers William Harding and Lamar Gill.

Lasara's own school district was approved on March 18, 1925, just a year after the townsite was platted.

For decades Lasara stayed very small — about 100 residents and four businesses in 1933, rising to 150 people and ten businesses by 1950, when it had a post office, a general store and a grade school.

The Census Bureau first counted Lasara as a CDP in 2000 with 1,024 people; its population peaked at 1,039 in 2010 and eased down to 909 in the 2020 census.

Households in Lasara run large — the 2000 census recorded 257 households averaging 3.98 people each, with nearly six in ten including children under 18.

About 95 percent of Lasara's residents are Hispanic or Latino, one of the highest shares of any community in Texas.

Lasara covers just 1.4 square miles of flat Valley farmland at an elevation of about 43 feet, and it keeps its own post office under ZIP code 78561.

Students attend the Lasara Independent School District; Lasara High School opened in the 2007–08 school year and graduated its first senior class in 2011, ending decades in which local teenagers were bused to Raymondville or Lyford for high school.