Our Community

Founding

Plainview is located 47 miles north of Lubbock and 76 miles south of Amarillo at an elevation of 3,366 feet above sea level.  It is conveniently located at the intersection of Interstate Highway 27 and U.S. Highway 70.

Plainview was founded in 1886 when Z.T. Maxwell moved his family and 2,000 sheep from Floyd county and established a farm in what is now northeast Hale County.  About the same time, Edwin Lowden Lowe, from Tennessee, took up residence north of the Maxwell homestead.  Maxwell and Lowe secured a post office on March 18, 1887 with the names Runningwater and Hackberry Grove were rejected as town names as a name that reflected a vast, treeless plain that surrounded the post office.  The town received a charter on July 3, 1888.

Growth

Plainview became the county seat when Hale county was organized in August of 1888.  Within a year, the town grew to a population of 75.  Located on a cattle trail in an area of abundant water, good ranch land, and excellent soil, the town grew dramatically.  By 1892, Plainview had four churches, two hotels, a seminary, a newspaper, stagecoach service, numerous businesses, and a population of 250.  On January 1,  1907, the Pecos and Nothern Texas Railway reached the town.  With the addition of the railroad, an agricultural boom was realized by Plainview and the surrounding area.  The growing city incorporated in 1907.  By 1910, the population had reached almost 3000 people and claimed 90 businesses.

Education Center

Plainview became a center for higher education early in the life of the city.  Central Plains Holiness College was established on land given by Ferd Falkner. Although the school was intended to serve students from the Nazarene Church, L. L. Gladney of Mississippi, the first president, persuaded the governing board to accept students of other denominations. The college was renamed Central Plains College and Conservatory of Music, before opening on September 18, 1907. In the first year some 159 students enrolled. The institution was coeducational but stressed military training. Students wore blue uniforms and kept strict schedules. Classes were taught from grade school through college; tuition ranged from $35 dollars a term for grades one through eight to $150 for nine months of college. Campus facilities included a three-story main building, two three-story dormitories, and a smaller music building. The college was set up to be self-sufficient and thus maintained a laundry and several barns and stables.
By 1910 the campus had grown to about fifty acres. College classes included music, business, theology, liberal arts, and dressmaking. The enrollment was estimated at 152 in 1908 and 225 in 1909. After three years, however, the task of running the school became too great for the Nazarenes, who sold the college for $32,000 to the Methodist Church of Plainview on December 27, 1910.
The school was renamed in honor of the first Texas bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was reorganized as a two-year coeducational college designed to prepare students to enter Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. The military atmosphere of the former Central Plains College was dropped. Football, basketball, and baseball teams were organized and competed with the new Wayland Baptist College, also in Plainview. Enrollment averaged more than 200 from 1913 through 1915. The men's dormitory was gutted by fire in the spring of 1914. Construction on a new building was begun, but before it was completed, a second fire, on March 16, 1916, destroyed both the administration building and the women's dormitory. The Northwest Texas Conference closed the school and in 1929 transferred its surviving funds to the board of education, which loaned the money free of interest to McMurry College in Abilene.
Dr. James Henry Wayland, a pioneering physician, recognized the importance of education. He was passionate about providing a faith-based education to the people of West Texas. To make this dream a reality, Dr. and Mrs. Wayland donated $10,000 and 25 acres of prime land, leading to the establishment of the Wayland Literary and Technical Institute, officially chartered in 1908.
Classes began in September 1910, with 241 students enrolled at what was now called Wayland Baptist College. The first graduation took place in 1911, with Elmer Childress as the first graduate. By 1914, Wayland had joined the Baptist General Convention of Texas as one of its affiliated schools. 

Under Dr. James W. "Bill" Marshall's leadership (1947-1953), Wayland expanded its reach, launching an international student program that soon boasted the highest percentage of international students of any American college. By 1948, Wayland had become a four-year college.

In 1951, Wayland made history by becoming the first four-year liberal arts college in the former Confederate states to voluntarily admit black students on an equal basis with white students, three years before the Supreme Court's landmark decision on racial segregation.

In 1956, Wayland achieved full accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and received approval from the Texas Education Agency to certify teachers.

In the 1980s, Wayland transitioned from a college to a university, expanding its offerings to include graduate and lifelong learning programs.  By 2003, Wayland Baptist University had become the fourth-largest Southern Baptist university in the United States.
Today, Wayland operates campuses and offers degrees in six states as well as online. In 2016, the university launched its first doctoral program, the Doctor of Management Degree.

Plainview Today

Plainview, with a population now of around 22,000, now operates as a service center for extensive farmlands that are irrigated by thousands of wells; the chief crops are wheat, cotton, castor beans, grain sorghums, and vegetables. Plainview’s industries are farm-based and include, ethanol production, meat packing, dairy, manufacture of irrigation equipment and a Walmart distribution center. 

More recently, the Hale Wind Project is impacting the local economy by boosting land values and providing more than $1.9 million in annual royalty payments to landowners within the wind farm’s footprint. Farmers and ranchers will continue to work their land as they have in the past, and don’t give up valuable ground water because wind generators don’t require water to operate. Additionally, Hale Wind will infuse the tax base with approximately $22 million in property tax payments over 25 years, providing additional revenue to Hale County.