Page 39 - Senior Link Magazine Summer 2026 - Online Magazine
P. 39
The Tubb Family's
Indelible Influence on Levelland
by Libby Thetford
After C. W. Post laid the
townsite of Hockley City, and
new commissioners were
sworn in, the first jobs they
did were to build a barbed-
wire fence around the square,
dig a windmill, and build a
two-room courthouse. The
windmill served as the life
blood for the seven families
who came in 1921. The Tubb
brothers carried water to their
home for the first two or three
years for drinking, washing,
and bathing. B. W. Taylor
planted black-eyed peas on
the courthouse square for
everyone to help themselves.
n October 1921, G. H. the townsite and had already
(Howard) and Lizzie Tubb built their home earlier that In the summer of ’21, a one-
Iand their children, Gano, year, two blocks east of the room school had been built
Francis, Nathan and Clarkie, square. Known as a shotgun two blocks east of the square.
drove from New Home to box, it had just one long room. The next year, a two-room
Hockley City (Levelland) They used mesquite wood to school was built with a
in a 1917 Model T. As they cook and wash clothes. Gano, windmill and outhouse. One
traveled across the prairie, they Francis, and Nathan collected room was for students, and
encountered the T. W. Bowers cow droppings for kindling. the other for B. E. Gunn, the
family who were experiencing Mrs. Tubb washed their clothes teacher. A bucket and dipper
car trouble. The Tubb family and laid them on the tall grass were used for drinking water,
stopped to help and pulled the to dry. and the entire campus was
Bowers’ Model T into Hockley enclosed in a barbed wire
City along with them. Mr. The Tubb family witnessed fence. The Tubb’s oldest two
Bowers had purchased the many dreaded prairie fires. sons, Gano and Francis, were
only store in town. The Tubbs The grass would catch afire the 4 and 5 students.
th
th
and the Bowers were the and burn hundreds, sometimes
first two families to settle in thousands, of acres. Every By 1922, thirteen students were
Hockley City and soon became able-bodied person turned enrolled.
good friends. out to fight grass fires with
wet sacks and brooms. Back Early entertainment included
Mr. Tubb had bought 177 then, neighbors depended on taffy candy pulls, homemade
acres of farmland for $30/ neighbors for survival. ice cream parties, croquet,
acre six miles southwest of spin the top, foot races, silver
Lubbock Senior Link 39
