How Lubbock and 14 Other West Texas Towns Got Their Names

On November 29th, 1817, Thomas Saltus Lubbock was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Lubbock died on January 9th, 1862 of typhoid fever in a hospital in Bowling Green, Kentucky. In between his birth and death, Thomas Lubbock was part of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, served in the Confederate Army, and was the Lieutenant Colonel of Terry's Texas Rangers.

With no direct tie to the area beyond probably passing through the South Plains a time or two, you might be asking why the City of Lubbock is named after Tom S. Lubbock? It's a valid question. Maybe it's because Lubbock's brother Francis was the Governor of Texas during the Civil War.

Regardless, Lubbock County was named in 1876 after Thomas, 14 years after his death. The city we now know as Lubbock was actually two settlements, Old Lubbock and Monterey, which merged in 1890. One of the settlements was led by Frank E. Wheelock, who would eventually serve as Lubbock's first mayor, and the other by W. E. Rayner, an overall badass who died after being gored by a bull.

By the time of the merger, Francis Lubbock was out of prison for his role in the Confederacy and served as Texas' state treasurer. The rest, as they say, is history.

But what about other noteworthy towns in West Texas? How did they got their names? Let's take a look.