Emergency Crime Scene and Biohazard Cleanup in Loraine, TX

Loraine is a small town in northeastern Mitchell County in West Texas, about ten miles east of Colorado City and fifty-eight miles west of Abilene.

Loraine was established in the early 1880s as a cotton and cattle shipping point on the Texas and Pacific Railway, though it saw little development in its early years.

Loraine got its post office in 1890 and its first school in 1893, but the town only took off after Parson Crandall bought the townsite land from the railroad and platted the town in 1905.

Three conflicting stories explain Loraine's name: it may honor a railroad official's wife, Loraine Crandall, the wife or daughter of local landowner Parson Crandall, or the French region of Lorraine.

Loraine grew rapidly once it was platted — a weekly newspaper began publishing in 1906, the community was incorporated by 1910, and by 1914 it had an estimated 800 residents and more than forty retail and service businesses, including a bank and an electric utility company.

Loraine's own hospital opened in 1938, and during the 1940s the Loraine Cooperative Association handled the dairy interests of several nearby counties.

Loraine's population peaked at 1,045 in the 1950 census, but the 2020 census counted just 504 residents living in 153 households.

Exactly half of Loraine's residents — 252 of the 504 counted — identified as Hispanic or Latino in the 2020 census.

Local children attend schools in the Loraine Independent School District.

Loraine was the childhood home of George H. Mahon, a longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and the birthplace of civil rights leader Glenn Smiley and WNBA player Michi Atkins.