Page 32 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Summer 2021 - Online Magazine
P. 32
Local
History
HISTORY OF
/
PLAINVIEW HALE COUNTY
THE FIRST THIRTY YEARS
by Rebekah Crowe and built a “soddy” along
Running Water Draw, near a
grove of hackberry trees. He
later insisted, in a letter to his
son, William, that he was both
the first permanent resident of
Plainview and the person who
gave the town its name.
E. L. Lowe travelled by wagon The student body poses in front of Wayland
train from Arkansas with his Baptist University. (Date unknown)
The Plainview & Lubbock Stagecoach pulled by
mules - 1907 (The 45 mile trip took a whole day.) daughter, Jane, in the spring Hoping to encourage commerce
of 1888, having buried his wife and population, local citizens spent
and son along the trail. Jane
s part of the national later recounted that, while the stop a few years raising funds after the
celebration of 100 years of bore the name Up-On-The-Draw turn of the twentieth century and
AUnited States’ nationhood, at the time, her dad renamed it successfully enticed the Santa Fe
the Texas State Legislature divided Plainview because he could see for Railroad to build a depot in town.
the Panhandle, which had been a long distance without anything The first train arrived on December
– since the days of the Lone Star blocking his view. The properties of 31, 1906.
Republic – part of an enormous these two men divided north/south
Bexar County, into fifty “Centennial through what is now Courthouse In September of that year, the
Counties.” One of those, Hale Square. Hale County held its first Central Plains College and Music
County, was named after John C. election in August 1888 and chose Conservatory opened on a large
Hale, who came from Virginia, by Plainview as the county seat. campus north of Plainview. It served
way of Louisiana; he had settled with students from first grade through the
his family in San Augustine County, In November 1888, the first, bachelor's degree as a co-educational
while Texas still was a province of temporary, Hale County courthouse institution, with military training
Mexico, before dying at the Battle of opened across the street from for all students. Originally affiliated
San Jacinto in 1836. Courthouse Square, while with the Holiness movement, the
local conference of the Methodist
construction continued on the
It took about a decade after the permanent courthouse, which went church took over the institution in
county’s creation for any large into operation in November 1892. 1909 as a junior college only and
number of settlers to arrive in Hale The first jail, a one-room “soddy” changed the name to Seth Ward
County. There are conflicting stories, at the corner of 5th Street and College. When the girls’ dormitory
both tied to and recounted by early Baltimore, was replaced by a wood and administration buildings were
settlers, about how Plainview got frame building next to the new lost in a fire in the spring of 1916, the
its name. Z.T. Maxwell, already in courthouse. The courthouse burned trustees voted to finish the academic
nearby Floyd County, moved his in 1911, and a new structure was year and then close the institution.
herd of sheep along what is now rebuilt on the same site.
Highway 70, in September 1886, Dr. James Wayland founded a
Baptist, co-educational junior college
32 Amarillo Senior Link
