

It is hard to imagine Lubbock and the South Plains without Texas Tech University. But early settlers of the area knew that founding an institution of public higher education here would be an uphill battle. In 1916 push began in West Texas to establish a branch of Texas A&M College in the western two-thirds of the state. A bill to establish such a college was introduced to the 36th Legislature in 1917. The bill passed both houses and was signed by

Governor James E. Furguson. The governor announced that a selection committee had cited the new college in Abilene, and that city immediately began a celebration.



But rancor spread in West Texas about how the site committee had operated. The first act of new Governor W.P. Hobby the next year was to repeal the law establishing the state college in Abilene.



New legislation to establish the college was introduced in 1921 and passed both houses but Governor Pat Neff vetoed the legislation, even in light of thousands of telegrams urging its signing. The governor cited hard times in West Texas.



Reaction to the veto in West Texas was strong and angry. Newspapers from Ft. Worth to El Paso called for quick action -- even the secession of West Texas -- to show the governor that West Texas meant business.



Legislation was introduced a third time in 1923. For the first time, several legislators began to question if a branch of Texas A&M was the best answer for public higher education in the region. On January 25, 1923, a bill creating Texas

Technological College was introduced by Senator W. H. Bledsoe and Representatives Lewis Carpenter and Richard Chitwood. Texas Tech would not be part of Texas A&M according to Senate Bill 103.



On February 10, 1923, Governor Neff signed the legislation creating Texas Technological College. Representative Chitwood called the bill "the magna carta of economic independence for Texas."



A site selection committee began visiting West Texas towns in July. A newspaper reporter recalls that the site committee was overwhelmed by their reception in Lubbock. "Lubbock wanted publicity and she was not disappointed. Leaving Lubbock...we found the highway festooned with hundreds of people, all of whom cheered and greeted us."



On August 8, 1923, Lubbock received word that the city had been chosen on first ballot as the home of Texas Tech. An August 28 celebration hosted 30,000 guests, although the population of Lubbock was only a few thousand at the time.



Classes opened at Texas Tech in the fall of 1925 with 914 students studying Liberal Arts, Agriculture, Engineering and Home Economics.



Senator Chitwood was prophetic when he called the creation of the college a magna carta of economic independence. Texas Tech University and the Texas Tech University Medical Center, first established in 1972, have a combined budget of more than $600 million per year. The economic impact on the state of the two institutions is more than $2 billion annually.