Zavala County is in an area of Texas that was disputed territory after the Texas Revolution. The Mexican government and the Republic of Texas both laid claim to the land. In an attempt to reinforce the choice of the Rio Grande as the Texas boundary with Mexico, the state legislature in 1846 established a county between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande and called it Zavala County, named for Lorenzo de Zavala, a Mexican colonist and one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Until 1858 the area was attached to the municipality of San Antonio, then to Kinney County, and later to Maverick County. In 1858, when the county was organized, the name was misspelled "Zavalla" by the legislature. A bill entitled "knocking the `L' out of Zavalla" was introduced and passed in the Texas legislature in 1906, but was rejected by the federal government. Not until 1929 was the mistake corrected. The first county seat was Batesville. In the 1920s and 1930s boss rule, a political patronage system, was widely practiced and caused a failed attempt by Crystal City to supplant Batesville as county seat in 1926. Greater attention to controlling Mexican-American voters in 1928 provided Crystal City's margin of victory in a county-seat election. -Handbook of Texas Online: Zavala County