- Table of Contents
- Richest Man in Lubbock County
- Wind Dust and Gullibility
- First Automobile in Lubbock
- Before Breaking Bad
Richest Man In Lubbock County
Once the Comanches were pacified, William Garvis laid claim to a massive ranch on the High Plains covering more than 20,000 acres in south Lubbock County. Before his death he broke his ranch up into smaller section and half section (or 640 and 320 acre) plots and sold them as farms. My grandfather bought the one that happened to be where the Garvis ranch house stood. Because of this, William Jr. would often come out, sit on the porch, and reminisce about his childhood and growing up in that house.
Now Willy, as people called William Jr., was a bit different. My father said he always wore dirty bib overalls and a tattered shirt. And he seemed to perpetually have three or four days of growth on his beard. Whenever he did wear shoes, they were scuffed and never polished. My father said that the only time he ever saw Willy clean shaven and wearing something other than soiled overalls was when he attended his mother’s funeral.
When Willy came to visit, he often shot marbles with my dad and his brothers, traded dime novels with them, and told them about the latest cartoons at the Lubbock movie house. Even though he was well into his forties, Willy had more in common with the ten and eleven year-old boys on the farm than with my grandparents who were far closer in age. In today’s terms, Willy fell somewhere on the autism spectrum. That’s why his father sold the ranch and placed the money in the bank. Over the years most of Lubbock forgot about the Garvis family and their wealth.
One time during the Depression, the county sheriff was driving out the bums and vagrants. As luck would have it, Willy was in the group that was arrested. When they explained the charge was vagrancy or having no money, Willy said, “I have lots of money. Just call the bank.”
“Which one do you have money in?”
“All of them.”
Reluctantly, the chief deputy called the president of the First National Bank of Lubbock and said, “We have a bum named William Garvis down here at the county jail.”
A roarous belly laugh came across the phone. Once the bank president regained his composure, he said, “Well if he wants to buy the place, I’ll be happy to honor the check.”
Wind, Dust, and Gullibility
One thing that people notice about Lubbock is that it is windy, really windy. Chicago may be known as the Windy City, but Lubbock has more windy days and at higher velocities. The only advantage to Lubbock wind is that it doesn’t come off of Lake Michigan in winter. However, it does have a major disadvantage because Lubbock is also very hot and very dry. With so much farmland in the area, the wind carries a fine red dust in the air.
Fortunately, new farming techniques and irrigation doesn’t make it as bad as it once was. The great drought of the 1930s and the resulting Dust Bowl had a dramatic effect on Lubbock and the rest of the Great Plains. During that era women on the farm would put dampened sheets in the window to collect the dust and to prevent dirt from getting in their baking and cooking. The impact is still felt in subtle ways. Anyone whose family lived through the Dust Bowl still has the family tradition of placing their glasses and cups upside down in the cupboard to keep dust from settling in them. And those who grew up in that time had the habit of always rinsing out a glass before pouring a drink, even if the glass had just been washed. These and other dust avoiding traditions have been handed down through the generations.
Those raised in the area have just accepted it as the way things are. Just as northerners have accepted harsh winters with snow piling ten feet high, or those in the Gulf States accepting summers so humid they feel they’re stepping in a sauna whenever they go outdoors. Of course, newcomers to Lubbock have a hard time adjusting.
One such women moved in from the northeast and was complaining about all the dust seeping into her home from even the smallest of cracks and holes. On hearing this one old-timer, with his tongue very much in his cheek, told her, “You need to do what we do. Next time we get a windstorm just open the front door and the back door and let wind blow all the dust out.”
Not growing up in the area, she lacked an appreciation of the West Texas sense of humor. She actually tried it. It took days to get all the sand out of her house.
She never forgave him.
First Automobile in Lubbock
Sometime between 1908 and 1910, a group of cowboys brought a small herd from the range into Lubbock. The great cattle drives were a thing of the past since the railroads had spread throughout the country, and now getting beef to market was a simple matter of bringing cattle into almost any town on the High Plains.
It was technically fall, but September and early October could still be very hot, and after a hard day of loading cattle on to train cars, the cowboys decided to wet their whistles before returning home. Each was enjoying his beer and swapping tall tales when they heard what sounded like a gunshot in the distance.
“Oh!” shouted an old-timer jolted awake from his nap while sitting in the corner. “It’s Quanah Parker and his bloody red raiders.”
“It can’t be, you old fool,” laughed one of the cowboys. “Quanah is on the reservation up in Oklahoma, and it’s been over thirty years since a Comanche raid.” As he said it said it, they heard about four or five more loud bangs.
“I tell you it’s them blood thirsty Comanches with the top half of their face painted black and the bottom painted red.”
“Ain’t no way,” said the cowboys laughing.
But there was one who quietly said, “Yea, but we should still see what it is.” The rest nodded, finished their beers, and saddled up.
They continued to hear the bangs as the road out to the head of Yellow House Canyon about a mile from rail yard. What they found was surprising.
All the bangs they were hearing, was the backfiring of a Model T stuck in the mud trying to ford Yellow House Creek. This the was first automobile ever seen in Lubbock County and that alone was worth noting, but the real shock was that the old-timer was right. For sitting in the back seat was Quanah, the last war chief of the Comanches.
He was returning to his birthplace at Laguna Sabinas near Seminole, as part of his final soul journey. After the initial shock wore off, the Cowboys helped get the car out of the mud, and sent him and his party on their way. To their way of thinking, Quanah might be a blood thirsty savage, who in the past would have taken their scalps, but he was also a Texan.
Sometime between 1908 and 1910, a group of cowboys brought a small herd from the range into Lubbock. The great cattle drives were a thing of the past since the railroads had spread throughout the country, and now getting beef to market was a simple matter of bringing cattle into almost any town on the High Plains.
It was technically fall, but September and early October could still be very hot, and after a hard day of loading cattle on to train cars, the cowboys decided to wet their whistles before returning home. Each was enjoying his beer and swapping tall tales when they heard what sounded like a gunshot in the distance.
“Oh!” shouted an old-timer jolted awake from his nap while sitting in the corner. “It’s Quanah Parker and his bloody red raiders.”
“It can’t be, you old fool,” laughed one of the cowboys. “Quanah is on the reservation up in Oklahoma, and it’s been over thirty years since a Comanche raid.” As he said it said it, they heard about four or five more loud bangs.
“I tell you it’s them blood thirsty Comanches with the top half of their face painted black and the bottom painted red.”
“Ain’t no way,” said the cowboys laughing.
But there was one who quietly said, “Yea, but we should still see what it is.” The rest nodded, finished their beers, and saddled up.
They continued to hear the bangs as the road out to the head of Yellow House Canyon about a mile from rail yard. What they found was surprising.
All the bangs they were hearing, was the backfiring of a Model T stuck in the mud trying to ford Yellow House Creek. This the was first automobile ever seen in Lubbock County and that alone was worth noting, but the real shock was that the old-timer was right. For sitting in the back seat was Quanah, the last war chief of the Comanches.
He was returning to his birthplace at Laguna Sabinas near Seminole, as part of his final soul journey. After the initial shock wore off, the Cowboys helped get the car out of the mud and sent him and his party on their way. To their way of thinking, Quanah might be a blood thirsty savage, who in the past would have taken their scalps, but he was also a Texan.
Before There Was Breaking Bad
Shortly after World War II Lubbock, Texas seemed to be flooded with marijuana. The law enforcement of this large town which was on the verge of becoming a small city was not prepared to handle this. The fear of “reefer madness” was concerning the city administration and its police force.
After months of detective work, and with the help of a few street snitches, it was determined that the pot was not being shipped into town but was actually home grown. This meant an extensive search would have to be made of the entire county. A daunting task considering the hundreds of thousands of acers of cotton farms and gardens in the area. This was also something completely new to the police at that time, and as such they had no idea what a marijuana plant even looked like. This seems strange to us, but you have to realize this was in the early 1950s, well before the drug culture of the 60s and 70s. This was the first time they had to deal with anything other than bootleg whiskey coming into, what was then a dry county. So, they called for outside help. They had the Texas Rangers, and some federal agents come and train them on what to look for. During the presentation a picture of a marijuana plant and its leaves were shown, and one of the local officers said, “I think I’ve seen that before.” When he told them where, they had to run out and check. Sure enough, it was right where he told them, the flower beds of the county courthouse.
The chief gardener had planted marijuana all over county property. He was letting the county pay for the fertilizer and water, while he would cut them back from time to time and sell the clippings for a tidy profit.