La Pryor

La Pryor is on the Missouri Pacific tracks at the intersection of U.S. highways 83 and 57, four miles west of the Nueces River in northwestern Zavala County. It was named for Col. Isaac (Ike) T. Pryor qv , who in the 1880s owned a large ranch that included the site of the community. There was an attempt to colonize the area at a proposed townsite known as Nuvalco (an acronym for Nueces Valley Colonization Company) six miles north of the site of present La Pryor. The attempt failed, and the property was sold to the Western Livestock and Land Company, which eventually sold the property to Ike Pryor around 1880. Pryor formed the Zavala Land and Water Development Company and marketed small farm units from a 30,000-acre section of his holdings west of the Nueces River. He made a deal with the Crystal City and Uvalde Railway in 1909 to construct a depot, switch, and cattle-unloading station at the site where La Pryor had been platted. Prospective buyers, lured by extensive advertising, arrived from throughout the country on organized train excursions to view the land and observe the exceptional variety of produce cultivated on J. W. Adams's experimental farm south of the townsite. Their numbers grew so large that many slept on the train and dined at a brush arbor hastily erected on the east side of town. A post office was established in the community in 1910. Farmers laboriously cleared their twenty-to-160-acre plots; dryland farming produced cotton, milo, corn, small grains, and red-top cane for hay. Early in 1910 the community had several general stores, a blacksmith shop, and the spacious three-level Nueces Hotel. La Pryor High School was constructed in 1912.