Falfurrias' founding and development were largely due to the efforts of Edward Cunningham Lasater, a pioneer Rio Grande Valley rancher and developer. In 1895, he started a cattle ranch in what was then northern Starr County. At one point, it was one of the largest ranches in Texas. With the extension of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway south from Alice to his ranch in 1904, Lasater founded the town of Falfurrias and subdivided a sizable portion of his ranch land for sale to farmers. In 1898, a post office opened in the community. A local newspaper began publication in 1906. Lasater brought in his Jersey cows and established a creamery in 1909. Sweet-cream butter and other products from Edward Lasater's creamery company made the town a familiar name across the state. That butter, though, is no longer made from milk produced in Falfurrias. Don Pedro Jaramillo, a Mexican-born "curandero" known as the "Healer of Los Olmos", was buried in Falfurrias in 1907 and is venerated at a shrine there.