LAPARA, TEXAS. Lapara (La Para) was on Farm Road 1596 two miles north of U.S. Highway 59 and ten miles northeast of George West in eastern Live Oak County. By the late 1870s a school existed in the area, and in 1877 a number of local residents grouped together to form the Lapara Baptist Church. In 1890 Lapara was granted a post office, and by 1896 the town had a general store, a corn mill, a cotton gin, and an estimated twenty-five residents. By 1915 the general store was probably the only business left in Lapara. The community church was moved to Cadiz in 1920, and Lapara lost its post office in 1922. A 1936 map shows the school and a few scattered houses at the site; in 1945, however, the school was consolidated into the George West Independent School District. A 1979 map showed only a few scattered dwellings near the Lapara site.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ervin L. Sparkman, The People's History of Live Oak County (Mesquite, Texas, 1981).

John Leffler