The largest
city in the
Texas Panhandle, with a
population of approximately 250,000 people. It is the
county seat of
Lubbock County and the home of
Texas Tech University. Other than the
college, which is the area's largest employer, the
economy is driven by
agriculture (especially
cotton),
hospitals, and
light industry -- the city keeps trying to
jump-start its
fledgling high-tech industry, but with limited success.
The city was founded in 1890 when two groups of
settlers agreed to abandon their current homes (known as
Old Lubbock and
Monterey) and combine into a new
settlement. They named their new home after the
county itself, which was named for
Thomas S. Lubbock, a former
Texas Ranger and the brother of
Francis R. Lubbock, who was the governor of Texas during the
Civil War.
Weather is generally
mild, with summer
temperatures far
cooler and less humid than other parts of the
Lone Star State. Winters can get quite
chilly, though areas further to the north in the
Texas Panhandle are much, much colder. Lubbock has a reputation as a very, very
windy city, and in fact, winds in springtime are pretty darn
blustery -- strong
dust storms are also common during the spring. Heck, I've seen some dust storms that were absolutely
terrifying in scope and intensity, though the really big ones are pretty darn rare.
The city has a
reputation for cranking out lots of great
musicians --
Buddy Holly and the Crickets,
Joe Ely,
Jimmie Dale Gilmore,
Butch Hancock, the
Maines Brothers Band,
Natalie Maines,
Waylon Jennings,
Delbert McClinton,
Terry Allen, and
Sonny Curtis are just some of the musicians who have come from the Lubbock area, and the
music scene is still fairly
vibrant (Yeah, there are more bands in
Austin, Texas, but ya know, most of those bands aren't
native to Austin. Austin gets its bands by
scavenging them from other cities).
Shopping's pretty good -- as the
largest city between
Dallas and
Albuquerque, everything from the
mall to the
bookstores to the
comics stores to the
game stores to the
department stores have to be damn good, or they'll lose
business to the bigger cities.
However, the
landscape is
very flat, the spring dust storms can be quite uncomfortable, there are no
package stores in town (they're all located about 10-15 minutes outside the
city limits), folks are
very conservative, and local
politics tend to be dominated by
Christianists and
aginners (If it costs
money, they're
agin' it).