LaCoste began in 1881 when the Galveston, Harrisburg, and San Antonio railroad moved west from San Antonio and placed a depot just inside the Medina County line to serve Castroville, then the county seat. That depot became the site of LaCoste, which local tradition says was named for Col. Jean B. Lacoste, a wealthy San Antonio businessman who had invested in the area. The town grew around the depot to meet the railroad's needs, adding shipping pens, warehouses, saloons, barbershops, blacksmith shops, and a butcher shop. In the 1890s, the railroad dug a deep well to supply water for its steam engines, and with dependable water available LaCoste expanded rapidly. By the turn of the century it had become the major shipping point for eastern Medina and western Bexar counties. In 1912, the arrival of irrigation water from Medina Lake brought a second boom, with record-breaking carloads of corn, cotton, livestock, and local produce shipped out and farm machinery and building materials shipped in to build homes and schools. LaCoste had a church, newspaper, general stores, drugstore, cotton gins, jail, hotel, bank, and a doctor. The town flourished until the depression of the 1930s, the drought of the 1950s, and the decline of local railroad shipping, and today farming and ranching, together with nearby San Antonio, continue to shape it.