by Autumn Bippert
The United States was once covered coast to coast by windmills that provided underground water as well as power.
The American Windmill Museum in Lubbock celebrates the history of wind-powered machines and the relationship between windmills and railroads. The museum houses more than 200 restored windmills and wind turbines.
“This is a history museum for the American style windmill,” said Coy Harris, a retired executive director and co-founder. “We’ve added to that by going back to early American history around 1600, and an English post mill that we now have on the grounds. So it covers our history of wind power in America from 1621 to right through today.”
Harris said that an estimated 24,000 people per year visit the museum. Regular hours are year-round from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. In June, July, and August, it is also open on Sundays from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m..
Admission is $7.50 for adults, $5 for children age 5 to 12, free for children younger than 5, $6 for seniors age 60 and older and veterans, and $20 for a family of four (two adults and two children). 
The museum has two exhibit halls featuring both water-pumping and electric-producing windmills. All have been restored to original manufacturer specifications.
There is a variety of colorful wooden windmills and practical steel windmills featured inside. There also are windmills with collapsible blades, windmills with directional tails, railroad windmills, industrial windmills, and iron bucket windmills. The museum even exhibits a haunted windmill, the last remaining “twin-wheel” in existence, which had a reputation for killing more than the usual share of windmill workers.
“Back in 1993, when we set this up, there was a lady that worked at Texas Tech that had been photographing windmills for about 30 years,” Harris explained. “And she had noticed that the number of windmills were decreasing.”
In the 1960s, Billie Wolfe, a faculty member in Texas Tech’s College of Home Economics, began traveling throughout the country searching for windmills and interviewing the farmers and ranchers who owned them. In 1992, Wolfe learned of an unusual collection of restored windmills in Nebraska that was for sale. She visited the owner in Mitchell, Nebraska, who had a premier collection of early American windmills.
In the summer of 1993, Wolfe met Coy Harris, a Lubbock native and CEO of Wind Engineering Corporation. Together, they established the American Windmill Museum as a non-profit organization.
“We started to set up this windmill museum to preserve those that were left,” said Harris.
Harris planned, arranged and moved the collection to Lubbock, a collection that included 48 windmills, 171 weights, 56 pumps and models. Then he began the work to raise money for the balance of the purchase.
In early 1997, Wolfe passed away, but the work by her and Harris was rewarded that summer by the City of Lubbock, which offered the windmill group a permanent home in an area of Mackenzie Park.
This 28-acre tract of hills was ideal for the large number of windmills the organization owned at the time. The Scarborough-Linebery Foundation of Midland awarded a grant of more than $1 million to the museum, and a 30,000-square-foot gallery building was built to house the windmills.
As executive director, Harris designed and supervised the construction of the windmill museum, as well as the restoration and continued acquisition of the museum’s collection of rare mills. During the period when the water-pumping windmills were being acquired, Harris collected a number of early electric-generating wind chargers, some dating to the 1920’s.
By 2015, the original building was full of windmills, so a complementary 33,000-square-foot gallery building was built and opened in 2016.
Featured inside the museum is a model train system, which has a 3,000-foot mainline track and a layout of the South Plains region.
“We put in a big train system because the trains and the windmill came out here together,” Harris said. “And they worked very well together.”
The historical model train system can run 10 trains at the same time across the large layout. There are 36 scale windmills and five railroad-style windmills that were printed on a 3-D printer. It also features 12 custom-built houses, 34 buildings and a 1940 vintage downtown Lubbock.
“There’s a lot of things to see here, so there are different things for different people,” Harris said. “All the kids love the train sets. The older people, who had windmills, like to see the windmills that they used to have. The ladies that come out to visit here, if they’re not into windmills, we have miniature houses that are used on our train set. Plus we have certain wind turbines, in fact, we have a big one that runs the whole place. So there’s quite a lot of things to see out here.”
Also inside the museum is the “Legacy of the Wind” windmill mural,which covers 6,000-square-feet of wall space. It also houses one of the largest collections of grinding millstones in the Garrison Millstone room, along with the Alta Reed collection of miniature houses.
Outside the museum is the Linebery Windmill Park, which has a variety of windmills across its 28-acres. The park features both old and new windmills that can be seen and heard pumping water from underground.
Also in the park is the Vestas Wind Turbine, which has a 154-foot diameter wheel and stands on a 165-foot tall tower. The turbine stands out as a giant among the windmills. It is large enough to power the museum complex.
The only museum in the world dedicated to the glider program is located near the Lubbock International Airport, on the edge of the city. In 1971, former pilots of the United States Army Air Force Glider Program formed the National World War II Glider Pilots Association. The main goal of the Glider Pilots Association was to preserve the history of the glider program.
In 1997, the pilots who ran the museum as volunteers realized the glider needed a more permanent home. The majority of the pilots of the Glider Pilots Association trained in Lubbock, so the City of Lubbock offered to provide a site for the museum. The Terrell site was closed in 2001, and the new location in Lubbock opened in October 2002 at the former site of the South Plains Army Airfield, where the CG-4A glider sits as the centerpiece of the museum.
as well as anti-tank guns, Howitzer anti-aircraft guns, and quarter-ton trailers full of ammunition and supplies.
Training Program, a nationally-sponsored program at select universities. In September 1939, Texas Technological College was accepted into the program with a quota of 40 students.
Dr. Johnson wanted to achieve that goal without affecting or damaging the cultural resources, Trevey said.
Lubbock Lake Landmark also has a lot of volunteer opportunities during the summer
Once the most abundant mammals in North America, Prairie dogs have lost 95 percent of their population due to hunting, poisoning and habitat loss. Prairie Dog Town is helping to preserve the population that is still in the Lubbock area.
out into the rest of the community and the rest of the area,” Gallagher explained about the current population. “And so we never have a clue as far as exactly how many are in there.”
The City of Lubbock’s website provides a Prairie Dog fact sheet, along with a scanned booklet “Our Comic friend the Prairie Dog and the story of Prairie Dog Town, Texas!”
Prairie dogs are primarily vegetarian, living on grasses, herbs and weeds. Occasionally, they will supplement their diet with grasshoppers, beetles, spiders and other small insects. Like their cousin, the desert rat, prairie dogs do not drink water but get needed body moisture from their food.
The Lions Club celebrated 90 years in Lubbock with their 67th Annual Pancake Festival. The Pancake Festival is a local favorite, with many families attending the festival every year for more than 20 years.
have been strangers, but became neighbors sharing an experience and supporting their community at the Pancake Festival.
She added that the Lions Club helped eradicate a disease called “River Blindness” in Africa.
Jim Campbell, the executive director at the Ranching Heritage Center, said
these three books I don’t know what do with them,” Campbell said.
The National Ranching Heritage Center has 50 structures including 30 that are between 100 and 200 years old. The NRHC features a self-guided walk through the museum and historical park, which can take anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes
The outdoor patio at The Garden in Lubbock recently served as a venue for goat yoga sessions. Rachel Henson, owner of Goat Yoga Houston, brought her miniature goats and crew to Lubbock on Nov. 17. She provided five sessions to give people plenty of opportunity to come join the fun.
because while you are holding a pose, a goat might just climb on top of you. The goats with a tremendous amount of calming energy will also try to break your attention by trying to cuddle up next to you on the mat, trying to suckle your fingers, or simply trying to get a good scratch. Although the goats can make it slightly more challenging when they climb on you, their hooves can provide a little bit of a massage as they stand, jump, and balance on you.
She adds that most of her goats are in their forever homes and are never sold for meet or over-bred for dairy. Morse left her marketing job in 2017 and later changed her company’s name to Original Goat Yoga in order to still be able to set her company apart from others.
The event featured the work of Latino artists, offered cultural experiences through both traditional and modern performers, a Dia de Los Muertos cake decorating contest, a few children’s activities that offered cultural understandings, a classic car showcase, and offered some products from participating vendors.
nature: fire, wind, water, and earth. However
One of the first faculty to be hired was Earl Gerstenberger, a former Blinn College agriculture and science instructor. Gerstenberger taught agriculture at SPC from 1958 to 1969, then served as Dean of Men from 1967 to 1973. In 1973, he was became Dean of Students, a position he held until 1982 when he became vice president of academic affairs before retiring in 1993.
Despite some naysayers in the community, the first registration was a success with 576 enrolling in both day and night classes.
“I like to think of South Plains as a community college,” explained Tubb. “Most junior colleges then just offered the first two academic years and then it would transfer to a university. We started out as having welding, and machine shop. We had a technical building, so we offered a wide variety of things, and that appealed to students in the area. We had an extension course at Reese Air Force Base, and that attracted a large number of students.”
“I am very proud of how the college has grown over the years,” said Dr. Satterwhite, the first alum to serve as president. “The size of the college sets it apart from many others in that it rivals many universities. In a way, I believe that speaks to the demand for our educational experience and allows SPC to command a greater respect in the delivery of higher education.”
There’s currently 22 students enrolled in the program for this year.
Carlsbad Caverns was formed around 250 million years ago, when marine wildlife built a limestone reef. A few million years later, about 60 million years ago, hydrogen sulfide gas and water created sulfuric acid, which ate away and created the caverns. Around 3 million years ago, the water drained and formed the caverns, along with the enormous stalagmites and stalactites.
The caverns contain little “pools” of water which can be found all around the caves. These pools remain from when the caves used to be filled with water, considering that there is no water flowing in or out. Longfellow’s Bathtub is the largest pool in the caverns.
“The self-guided tour usually lasts around two to two and a half hours,” McCombs said. “The tour with a tour guide lasts around an hour and a half.”
