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LUBBOCK, TEXAS
Lubbock
County
Seat, Texas Panhandle
33° 34' 40" N, 101° 53' 24" W (33.577778, -101.89)
US 27, 119 miles S of Amarillo
Hwys 84, 87, 62 and 385
139 miles N of Odessa
162 miles NW of Abilene
327 miles W of Dallas
Population: 260,972 Est. (2019)
229,573 (2010) 199,564 (2000) 186,206 (1990)
Book Hotel Here › Lubbock
Hotels |
Lubbock County
Jail
Vintage
photo courtesy Ken Sharpe
More Texas Jails |
History
in a Pecan Shell
Present day Lubbock is a merging of two towns - Old Lubbock
and Monterey. Rival town promoters saw the writing on the wall
and realized it was mutually beneficial to do so. The compromise was
reached when Lubbock
County was organized in 1891.
The town was named after Colonel Thomas S. Lubbock, Texas Ranger and
brother of Texas Governor Lubbock.
Highlights
in Lubbock's History
1884: Post Office
opened in Yellow House Canyon (now part of a city park)
1891: Lubbock County
organized / The newspaper Lubbock Leader was founded
1900: The Lubbock Avalanche newspaper is founded
1909: Santa Fe Railroad enters Lubbock from Plainview
1916: First Electrical Plant started
1923: Texas Technical College is founded (later Texas Tech)
1936: Lubbock Lake Archeology Site is discovered
1969: Texas Tech College becomes Texas Tech University
1972: Liquor is sold - Lubbock loses it's claim on being the largest
"dry" city in the United States |
Lubbock
Landmarks/Attractions
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The
Lubbock County Courthouse:
The modern-style building built in 1950 replaced their 1915 courthouse.
Museum
of Texas Tech University: 4th Street and Indiana Avenue
Ranching
Heritage Center: Indiana and 4th Street (East of Texas Tech)
15 acres with 33 structures actually used by 19th and 20th Century
pioneers - dugouts, windmills, barns and bunkhouses.
Wind Power
Center: Canyon Lake Drive between 19th and Broadway.
Buddy Holly
Walk of Fame: 8th Street and Avenue Q.
Buddyt Holly Festival in early September.
Mackenzie
Park: Avenue A and East Broadway - Includes a Prairie Dog Town
Lubbock Lake Landmark State Historical Park
Buffalo
Springs Reservoir: 5 miles east of Lubbock on the Double
Mountain Fork of the Brazos River
Lubbock Tourist Information
Chamber of Commerce / Convention and Visitor's Bureau:
1301 Broadway, Ste. 200, Lubbock, Texas 79401
Phone (806) 747-5232, 1-800-692-4035
http://www.lubbocklegends.org/
Book Hotel Here › Lubbock
Hotels
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A half-revealed
painted sign from downtown Lubbock
Photo by Wes Reeves
More Ghost
Signs |
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Steel
House by Byrone Brown
Sculptor and architect Robert Bruno has bequeathed to us his Steel
House, sometimes referred to as “The Metal Mansion”, just outside
of Lubbock in Ransom
Canyon.
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Lubbock Chronicles
Lubbock
Lights and UFOs by Clay Coppedge
I've seen some weird things. But I never saw the Lubbock Lights.
They came along a couple of years before I was born, in 1951. As
far as I know, which isn't very far, they haven't returned but their
mystery and the legend surrounding the lights has never quite gone
away... more
Lubbock
Ghost Stories by Mike Cox
Two Lubbock ghost stories and one strange tale of a man who made
his amends for a ghastly crime one brick at a time, as told by Rob
Weiner, a librarian at Texas Tech University.
Who
killed J.W? by Clay Coppedge
The first recorded murder on the South Plains of Texas happened
when Lubbock lawyer J.W. Jarrott was shot and killed while watering
his team of horses near the present-day community of Ropesville
on Aug. 27, 1902... James William Jarrott - Jim to his many friends
and associates - moved with his family to Lubbock in June of 1901.
. more
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People
The
Legendary Stardust Cowboy by Clay Coppedge
In the wake of his TV debut, those of us who did not know he lurked
in our Lubbock midst were told how ol’ Stardust had always been
contrary to ordinary...
Professor
Thomas A. Langford by Byron Browne
"... I had, up that point, suspected that Dr. Langford was
extraordinary and now I had both strong proof and witnesses..."
The
Walking Arsenal by Clay Coppedge
We don't know if Harry Raymond Pope set out to make a name for himself
when he chose crime and violence as a vocation, but judged by the
standards of others in his line of work, he did pretty well for
himself. He even made the FBI's Top Ten Wanted list in 1959-sort
of an all-star team for criminals.
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Lubbock,
Texas Old Photos
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Lubbock County
Library, Slaton Branch
Vintage photo courtesy Texas State Archive
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| The old College
Avenue Co-op Gin |
I
found your web site today. It’s fantastic!
My family was in the cotton ginning
business in Central
Texas and the Panhandle.
I saw a lot of back country along the old U.S. Route 84 between Hubbard
(Hill County) Texas and Lubbock, Texas. I still love to stop and look
at the old railroad
depots.
I was in Denison
a few weeks ago and found an old railroad station. Railroads and stations
are one of my passions. Denison has an old hotel, too, that must have
seen a lot of life.
Above is the old College Avenue Co-op Gin. The gin was south
of Lubbock. It WAS College Avenue then because Texas Tech was not
a university. They changed the street name when the Tech became a
university. My earliest memories were when it was steam driven. I
remember the old steam engine, the boiler and the fireman who ran
it. Then they tore that down and put in a huge Waukesha engine that
my twin brother and I could crawl down into the cylinders! Then they
went electric.
My first school was Wheelock Elementary in Lubbock. It was
made up from old U.S. Army barracks taken from some base somewhere.
Then Wheelock was rebuilt.
I remember a ginner (a man who ran the gin stands) was killed when
he was pulled into the saws and chewed to death. It was a horrible
death. The saw was boxed up, but my twin brother, Jerry, and I sneaked
in and saw it. It was all bloody. My father, Lloyd C. Goode, was manager.
We lived on the gin property. Later my father installed individual
electric motors on each gin stand so that the ginners did not have
to clean the saws while the saws were turning.
Jerry and I say that one day we will take a day or two and re-trace
that U.S. 84 route from Waco,
TX, to Lubbock just to see all those little towns again. This
was the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. U.S. 84 must have followed the
railroad because tracks ran parallel to U.S. 84 for most of the way.
The towns I remember are Gatesville,
Comanche,
Abilene, Sweetwater,
Slaton, Roscoe
just to name a few. My mother was stopped for speeding in Roscoe
once. I remember a truck stop on U.S. 84 then but is now I-20. It
was between Roscoe and Abilene.
It had huge oil derrick out front hold up the sign. That derrick is
still there!
- Regards, Jay Goode, Goode Web Design, www.goodewebdesign.com, December
29, 2010 |
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| The
ol' (elevated) swimmin' hole |
| [This windmill]
was on our farm in Lubbock, Texas in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The tank was a converted oilfield boiler manufactured by my father.
As six and seven year-old children, we would climb the windmill, scoot
across the small pipe, and swim in the tank. - Bob Walker, A Texan
in Florida, December 20, 2005 |
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Texas
Escapes,
in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing Texas,
asks that anyone wishing to share their local history and recent
or vintage/historic photos, please contact
us.
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