1909 - 1925
In 1909, the city incorporated and by 1910 increased in population to 1,938. The Santa Fe Railroad's opening of a line through Lubbock in late 1909 helped to double Lubbock's population by 1920. More importantly for the architecture of the town, the railroad made available more affordable brick and masonry products previously difficult and expensive to acquire. The Overton Addition, Lubbock's first residential addition, was platted west of the Original Town square mile in 1907.
Santa Fe Railroad
Trestles, East of Avenue Q in
Yellowhouse Canyon, constructed 1909.
The construction of the railroad and the need for farm laborers also brought minority groups into the area. The Guadalupe area north of 4th Street and east of Avenue Q was founded by a few Mexican-American families around 1914. African-Americans settled in the southeast corner of the Original Town: east of Avenue C and south of 16th Street. Due to the tornado in 1970, urban renewal, and the construction of Interstate Highway 27 - all in the older areas of the city - very few examples of early minority homes remain. As the city grew to the Southwest, Mexican-American and African-American families moved into neighborhoods originally built and occupied by Anglos.
As the economy improved, less permanent wood framed commercial and public buildings were replaced with larger, longer lasting, fire resistant masonry structures. For this reason, no wooden commercial or public buildings built before 1910 remain. In 1924, an article in the Lubbock Morning Avalanche pointed out one of the consequences of progress and a concern for preservation. Discussing the construction of a new automobile dealership on the corner of 12th Street (now Broadway) and Avenue H, the author lamented the demolition of a thirty-year old wooden building and a well-known landscape feature:
The greatest regret that goes with the building of this splendid structure is the fact that the big popular (sic) three (sic) that has stood majestically at the rear of the building for many years, and has sheltered thousands of birds, and under its spreading limbs hundreds of nice, red jucy (sic) melons have been sliced and eaten, must go, and the cutting down of this tree will be one of the first operations in the beginning of this building (sic). Gradually these old land marks (sic) are being removed to make room for more modern buildings. (The Lubbock Morning Avalanche, 10 August 1924
Between 1909 and 1925, several banks and schools, numerous commercial buildings, hospitals, a city hall, and a new courthouse were built of masonry, most of which replaced older wooden "landmarks" like the Avalanche writer mentioned. Starting in 1920 and continuing into the 1930s, many streets in the city were paved - also with brick - some of which remain. One existing wood-framed structure from those years is the original St. Paul's on the Plains Episcopal Church, first constructed at 15th Street and Avenue O in 1913. Two typical small commercial buildings from this era are 701 Avenue H (c. 1917) and 602 Broadway (c. 1924).
Texas Avenue Looking south from Main Street. Twenty blocks of downtown streets were paved with brick in 1920.
These new masonry commercial and public buildings were designed in traditional styles that had been popular for decades, borrowing details from the Renaissance, Gothic, and Classical periods. Smaller downtown commercial buildings applied similar details to their facades. As a reaction to the excesses of Victorian architecture and growing interest in the American Colonial period, there was a return to more traditional styles in residential construction. While wealthy Lubbockites tended to prefer masonry homes based on Classical European or American Colonial prototypes, many less expensive wood framed houses were built in styles that originated in the United States. After 1900, the Bungalow or Craftsman Style changed the way Americans lived.
