Highlights in Lubbock's History:
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Much of the Wild West imagery that even Hollywood might have imagined has taken place in Lubbock's history.
From skirmishes between buffalo hunters and Comanches, to pioneer ranchers pasturing their herds in a seemingly endless sea of grass, Lubbock has experienced it all. And the city that emerged from that heritage of resourcefulness, symbolically began with a lonely first store set up by George Washington Singer in 1882.
Singer's outpost store, located near the present Lubbock Lake Landmark in Yellow House Canyon, also was positioned in an area where four military routes crossed, according to research done by H. Allen Anderson for an article in "The handbook of Texas."
During its short lifetime in Yellow House Canyon, Singer's store thrived, was burned to the ground by a Mexican outlaw, rebuilt from lumber hauled from Colorado City, and finally moved to the foundational site of the town of Lubbock.
Lubbock actually can trace its origin to a spirit of unity. There were two competing communities at first, one located north of the present Texas Tech campus, and the other along the western edge of what is now Lubbock International Airport.
Historian Paul H. Carlson, professsor at Texas Tech, reports there were two groups of promoters who had established embryonic towns called Lubbock and Monterey.
"Because the villages were less than three miles apart - although divided by a shallow canyon of the Brazos - a compromise was needed, for everyone understood that both communities could not survive," he said.
"In December 1890, having reached an accommodation, the promoters, led by W.E. Rayner, Frank Wheelock and Rollie Burns, agreed to a third site, and a new town, also called Lubbock, appeared south of the canyon where they thought a railroad might pass through the area."
The competing towns - including Singer's store and the two-story Nicolett Hotel - were moved to what is now the downtown area of Broadway and Buddy Holly Avenue.
According to David Murrah, an author with Carlson and Donald Abbe of the book "Lubbock and the South Plains," the Nicolett was moved almost whole. Its front porch was taken off, the rest of the building placed on skids, and then it was pulled slowly and painstakingly to the new site by teams of horses.
But life in Lubbock itself was off and running. The town won election as the political seat of Lubbock County, and by the time dust had settled from the move, more than 100 people were living there.
Pragmatism preceded education in Lubbock. In 1891, the first school opened in a new building constructed to house a jail. The cells hadn't been installed at the time. According to records kept by the Lubbock Independent School District, it was used first by 19 students sitting at the feet of the town's only teacher, Minnie Tubbs.
Lubbock's population was reported at 283 on the 1900 census.
The Santa Fe railroad came to town in 1909, and in later years six additional lines radiated from what has become known as the Hub of the Plains.
By 1910, 1,938 people were living in Lubbock, and the following year the city launched the Lubbock Police Department by hiring its first two policemen.
Lubbock High School was built in 1910 in the 1600 block of 13th Street. It graduated five seniors in 1912 and 12 in 1913.
Lubbock seems always to have attracted foundational institutions with which to secure its future. One of the first was Texas Tech, established as Texas Technological College in 1923.
"The college grew remarkably in students, faculty, and facilities, continuing its expansion through the 1930s and afterward," Carlson said.
A Lubbock Municipal Airport was built in 1930, but airline service didn't begin for another 15 years.
By World War II, the early 1940s , the Lubbock area already had two military installations: South Plains Army Airfield, a glider training base adjacent to the airport; and Lubbock Army Airfield, a conventional aircraft training facility later named Reese Air Force Base, and now Reese Technology Center.
Another pillar of Lubbock, which Gov. Preston Smith struggled successfully to obtain, involved the approval in 1969 of the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center. Classes started in 1972, and construction for the main building at 3601 Fourth St. began in 1973.
Lubbock's past has not always been upbeat. It suffered a devastating tornado May 11, 1970, that took 26 lives and injured 500 people. In one night, the storm destroyed more than 1,000 homes and damaged an additional 8,000.
Still, a pioneering spirit of resilience enabled the community to rebuild, and in the place of a residential area that had been reduced to rubble, the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center was erected.
Along with the memorial to victims of the storm, other memorials have been built also, some to recall Lubbock's beginning. An American Wind Power Center displays windmills, without which the area probably could not have been settled in the early 20th century. And a National Ranching Heritage Center has assembled buildings that once were used by this region's pioneers.
Agriculture also is documented by the American Museum of Agriculture.
Some of Lubbock's independent nature may come from the defiant character of its namesake, Thomas S. Lubbock.
Lubbock the man participated in the siege of Bexar at the start of the Texas Revolution, later was imprisoned by the Mexican Army and escaped by leaping off a balcony of the prison, and subsequently became a Texas Ranger.
His life concluded as an officer in the Confederacy.
Lubbock the town doesn't seem at this time to have any conclusion on its horizon.
1876 - Texas Legislature establishes Lubbock County and names it for Thomas S. Lubbock, a former Texas Ranger and Klansman.
• 1882 - George W. Singer opens a store in Yellow House Canyon, the first store in Lubbock County.
1884: Post Office opened in Yellow House Canyon (now part of a city park)
1890 - Rival settlements built up on opposite sides of Yellow House Canyon.
• 1890 - Final town site decided for Lubbock, located about where present day Broadway and Buddy Holly Avenue intersect.
1891: Lubbock County Organized / The newspaper Lubbock Leader was founded
1891 - Present site of downtown Lubbock purchased for $1,920, and previous communities moved to the new site, creating a population of more than 100.
• 1891 - First school opened in a building constructed to house a jail.
1900: The Lubbock Avalanche newspaper is founded
1900 - Lubbock County population reaches 293 in the 1900 census.
1909: Santa Fe Railroad enters Lubbock from Plainview
1910 - Lubbock's urban population reaches 1,938 in 1910 census.
1916: First Electrical Plant started
1920 - Lubbock's population reaches 4,051 in the 1920 census.
1923: Texas Technological College is founded (later Texas Tech)
• 1930 - Lubbock Municipal Airport opened.
1936: Lubbock Lake Archeology Site is discovered
• 1940 - Lubbock's population rises to 31,853 on the 1940 census.
• 1941 - Lubbock Army Airfield, later Reese Air Force Base, established.
• 1942 - South Plains Army Air Field opened at Lubbock Municipal Airport.
• 1954 - Lubbock Public Library opens on 19th Street across from Lubbock High School.
• 1969 - Texas Tech Health Sciences Center approved.
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
• 1977 - Lubbock Memorial Civic Center opened.
• 1990 - Population of Lubbock reaches 186,206 on 1990 census.