Ed Lasater: The Cattleman Who Built Falfurrias, Texas

Who was Ed Lasater?

Edward Cunningham Lasater was born November 5, 1860, at Valley Farm near Goliad, Texas, to Albert Hezekiah and Sarah Jane (Cunningham) Lasater, according to the Handbook of Texas biography as reproduced on a Live Oak County genealogy page. As a teenager he gave up school and his plan to study law to help with the family's sheep operations in Atascosa County when his father's health declined.

From Live Oak County to the Falfurrias ranch

In 1882 Lasater and his father bought a ranch near Oakville in Live Oak County. His father died the next year. Lasater then spent several years buying and selling large lots of cattle, which built his credit and taught him the rangelands of the state.

His first South Texas land purchase for the Falfurrias ranch came in 1895, the same year he bought 7,000 brood cows from the Kenedy Pasture Company. A Texas Co-op Power feature describes the seller as Mifflin Kenedy, Richard King's ranching partner. A 1971 historical marker gives a different date, saying the town grew on land he bought in 1893, so sources differ on the exact year. The Handbook says the ranch reached about 350,000 acres roughly ten years later.

Hereford, Shorthorn, Brahman and Jersey cattle

Lasater was known for large, high-quality Hereford and Shorthorn herds. The Handbook credits him with pioneering the use of Brahman bulls for crossbreeding. He started with Durham Shorthorns, a breed that could serve for beef or dairy.

More than a dozen years after the ranch began, he built a Jersey herd that the Handbook calls the largest in the world. That herd fed the Falfurrias Creamery Company, whose sweet cream butter made the town's name familiar across Texas. The first Falfurrias Butter was made in 1909.

How did Lasater found Falfurrias and Brooks County?

In 1904 the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway extended south from Alice to his ranch. A Texas historical marker in Falfurrias says he platted the townsite and built a hotel, a general store, water and power plants and a cotton gin. He sold subdivided ranchland to farmers, and the marker credits him with opening the area to truck, citrus and dairy farms and founding the first creamery in South Texas.

After about four years of effort, Lasater and his supporters formed Brooks County in 1911, with Falfurrias as county seat. The origin of the name is unsettled. Lasater said it was a Lipan Apache word meaning "land of heart's delight," but a linguist cited by Texas Co-op Power could not confirm it. The marker lists other explanations, including a Spanish flower name and a local story about a shepherd called Don Filfarrias.

Politics, public service and later years

Lasater was elected president of the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas in 1911. In 1912 he was the Texas Bull Moose Party's candidate for governor. In 1917 Herbert Hoover appointed him chief of the livestock and food production department of the U.S. Food Administration, but he resigned soon after over differences with Hoover.

He married Martha (Patti) Noble Bennett in 1892; she died in childbirth in 1900. In 1902 he married Mary Gardner Miller of Galveston. He died March 20, 1930, in Ardmore, Oklahoma.

Legacy: Beefmaster and Falfurrias butter

His son Tom originated Beefmaster cattle, and another son, Garland, led the creamery. Falfurrias Butter is still sold: Dairy Farmers of America bought the brand, and Keller's Creamery in Winnsboro now makes it. The Falfurrias high school mascot is the Jersey.

For more on the working ranch tradition behind such names, see farm.FM's ranching coverage and a farm.FM story about Falfurrias ranching.